Melancholy Requiem
by Cat In My Fridge
Summary: [ Seifer x Squall ] In this AU story, Seifer and Squall meet up one fateful day as complete strangers. Succumbing to this cocky, yet sorrowful stranger's magic, Squall starts wondering what it really means to be 'alive'... Dark, Yaoi, adult content. COMPL
1. I'm a million different people

A/N: It's me! Back with another Seifer/Squall story. So you know now what I've been doing since I abandoned _Slaying the Dreamer _all those months ago... I wrote this little ficcy here and it wasn't until now that I finally decided to post it. I started Melancholy Requiem about 2 months ago, when the plot was haunting me. I finished it at about fifty pages last week (yeah, _Melancholy Requiem_ is actually _complete_! Whee!), but I'm currently editing every chapter quite heavily – which means I'll post one after the other. I'm so sorry for not having written anything in so long, but be assured that _Slaying the Dreamer _will be continued eventually..! I'm very sorry for having put it on hiatus.

I would be insanely, and I really mean _insanely_, happy if you considered to review this. :) If you find any major flaws in it, please let me now and I'll consider re-editing it – I'm determined to make this a good story, somehow. You deserve that much from me after me having been so bad with not updating these past months.

I'll try to edit this fast so the other chapters get ready to be posted soon..! (I do a Eurotrip through France, Spain and Portugal for a month starting next week though, so it won't be finished until sometime during early September.)

Well, on with the story.

**Plot:**This story is about two strangers meeting up in a strange city, philosophizing about life, death and everything inbetween. Can brief encounters open you up or maybe even change your life? What does it even really mean to be alive...?

Drawn to each other, Squall and Seifer are about to clash and find out.

**Warnings:** Oops, it turned out pretty bad. Language, emotional violence, sexual encounters (not in this chapter yet..), drug usage... in short, all the good stuff. ;) Will contain pretty.. graphic... things, which I'll try to post somewhere else and give you the link. I guess it's fair to say that _Melancholy Requiem_ is quite sexual overall. I'm a closet hentai. Well, not so closet anymore.

**Timeline:** Please notice that this is an AU-setting.

**Disclaimer: **The world of Final Fantasy VIII is not mine, but Squaresoft's or Sqaureenix's or Squeenix's or whatever the hell they're calling themselves now. _Melancholy Requiem_ was named after a song on the _Silent Hill 4 OST _that I don't own either (in fact, the OST owns me, not the other way 'round.). The plot o_f Melancholy Requiem_ is based on a short story by manga artist _Fuyumi Soryo_, though I added much more depth and story to Soryo's concept.

**Length:** It's a rather short story. Four chapters + Epilogue.

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_Melancholy Requiem_

_by Cosina Veloce_

_Chapter 1: I'm a million different people_

"I'm going to kill you," Squall hissed. His voice seemed very loud on this quiet day on a bench in a sidestreet of Deling City. The hand holding his cell phone trembled.

"Let me do it for you you," a relaxed voice came from next to him, and Squall didn't so much as look up, ignoring the voice.

He snapped his cell phone shut. The noise seemed loud and obstrusive in the empty sidestreet of Deling City, and Squall instantly regretted having made that sound that so violently disturbed the picture of slowly trailing down snow and watery, yellowish streetlights; a romantic scenario in which the sound of modern technology didn't seem to fit in. Squall was a fan of nature, secretly. Kind of ironic if you kept in mind that his father was the president of techno-city itself, and his mother was an earnest fan of collecting technology articles of all kind. Nethertheless, Squall had an eye for the beauty and purity of nature. The way it soothed him. The way it caressed his nerves. The way it would hopefully help him to return to his cool self in a moment...

"Hey," the voice from next to him called again, and Squall frowned to himself, the voice prominent in his auditory channel now, obstrusive, loud and entirely unpleasant. "Are you deaf?"

Squall just mumbled to himself.

_Something came up, _Laguna's shaky voice had stuttered. Squall took a wild guess that said something was probably acquainted by a pair of extra-sexy legs as opposed to the usual pair of sexy legs that kept him from doing his fucking duties. Fatheres weren't good for anything. _Especially_, it seemed, when they were super-rich and happened to be the president of Esthar. Squall dimly registered that he didn't even know when he had last seen his father, much less had spent much time with him. But Squall figured it didn't really matter either way...

"Hey!" the voice exclaimed, and this time, Squall felt a hand on his shoulder that spun him around, and Squall had to bite down on his tongue in order not to yelp. He saw himself confronted by a pair of green eyes that were narrowed with anger and embedded in the face of an entire stranger. "Do you think you're too good to talk to me?" The voice had lost its playfulness and had taken on an edge that was unmistakably threatening. It was a manly voice, and a deep one, Squall noticed as he mechanically removed the stranger's hands from his shoulders and stood up, turning to leave. Squall's lean body shivered as the wind picked up and tossed a handful of snow into his face, and he tugged his coat tighter, inwardly cursing not only Laguna, but also Deling and the weather and since he was at it, the world and everything in it, as well. And especially that weird stranger.

_A round of hating was like cleansing to the soul_, he had read somewhere a while ago. He thought he would have to give witty one-liners more credit in future as he felt a tremor of cold working down his spine, tensing his muscles and erecting his nipples underneath the furry coat that despite its thickness couldn't warm the young boy, who wasn't used to weather like this, having grown up and still living in the sunny Balamb that was never graced by the frosty elegance of snow even in the deepest of winter. When he was younger and it was Christmas, he used to sit with his mother underneath the Christmas tree, singing about snow and raindeers and all that baloney, and Squall would ask his mother where the fucking snow was. Well, he had his answer now.

"Do you speak my language?" the stranger asked, who apparently wasn't giving up. Squall stopped walking.

The brunette rolled his eyes dramatically.

"Maybe," Squall said.

"Beware, it talks," the stranger exclaimed.

"Funny," Squall answered unenthusiastically, trying to commence his walk, but stopping. He turned around to the stranger, silently weighing his options.

"Where's the hotel?" he asked. If he was forced to talk to him, he might as well take advance of it to get necessary information out of him and Squall reckoned he was as good as anyone to give directions. As he shifted his lazy gaze to look at the guy, he noticed how blonde he was, his hair the colour of genuine gold, and that he far outmatched him in terms of height and muscular attributes.He could tell, even though the other man was still sitting on the bench on which Squall had talked to his father on. _My father, the president, _he thought sulkily. _They should make a movie out of this. Or a game, possibly. _

The guy got up with a smirk that was entirely too confident for Squall's liking. "I can show you," he said, "if you let me treat you to some coffee," he added with a smirk.

Squall frowned. "Blackmail," he drawled. "Peachy."

"You have a Balamb accent," the guy remarked, then positively beamed as though he'd just answered the 1 million Gil question. Squall thought better of telling the guy that that realization hardly made him a genius as he just shrugged lazily. Most people noticed he was from Balamb, the drawling accent as thick as syrup sticking to his voice. It led to some funny reactions when he told people he was Laguna Loire's son, and it was pretty much the only reason why Squall had never tried to get rid of it. His life was so without giggles anyways. Wasn't a multi-million Gil heir of one of the most powerful men in the world with a peasanty accent just a fun thing? Well, it was funner than most things in Squall's life. _Funner_. Squall liked that word. It wasn't actually a word, but Squall liked it anyways.

"My name is Seifer," the guy informed him, even though Squall hadn't asked and hadn't been particularly interested in his name. At least he had enough common sense not to extend his hand and grin like an idiot, or, Hyne beware, even say the phoniest of all expressions right after 'how are you', which was 'nice to meet you'. The world was already too phony too bear.

"I live here in Deling. Well, right now, I'm staying at the hotel," the guy – Seifer, Squall reminded himself – continued, either unaware or outwardly ignoring Squall's lack of interest. Or both. Or neither. Or what the hell ever. _Why was he even bothering?_

"Who was that on the phone?" Seifer asked casually.

Squall frowned. "My father."

"Yeah, fathers make for trouble," Seifer nodded. "Be glad you have one, though. I never did."

"I didn't, either," Squall answered, before he could as much as think his response over, instantly regretting it. Seemed like having an irrensponsible father sooner or later rubbed off on you. Even if he was never there for you and actually didn't have much time to rub much of anything off on you. Had to be some kind of telekinetic thing.

Seifer remained silent for a second and just regarded the other man for a while. Squall didn't even try to read his mind or his gaze, too preoccupied with other thoughts to pay much attention to what the other man was thinking or feeling. In addition, the snow that was so peacefully trailing down and just adding to that wonder-fucking-fully peacefulness of a homey winter day was starting to slowly soak its way through his coat rather unpeacefully and all he really wanted was to find that fucking hotel, check in, leave for Balamb the next day and never think of this dreadful incident again.

"Must be really cold for somebody from Balamb," Seifer mused.

_What an intellectual giant, _Squall exclaimed inwardly. On the outside, he just glared at the other man.

"Don't you wanna get warm, then? Let's go and grab some coffee."

Squall frowned. "What for?"

Seifer laughed throatily. "You're so pretty when you frown, little one."

"Little one?" Squall echoed.

"Yeah, how old are you? 16... 17?"

"18." Squall answered, his voice bored and icy. He was still trying to figure out what exactly the other guy could possibly want from him.

Seifer whistled. "Not bad. You look younger, though. I'm 19."

It didn't happen very often that anybody bothered to talk to Squall, mainly because in his home town of Balamb, everybody already knew that Squall wasn't exactly what you would call a chatterbox, much less a very sociable person. If we're going to be precise here, there really wasn't any kind of sociability to speak of when it came to Squall, so everybody stayed clear of him, which was, as it so happened, Squall's preferred state. It only ever happened in other towns, such as Deling or Timber, that people - girls -_did_ bother, though they were quickly scared off by his cold demeanor, and left him alone for good, which, again, was just how Squall liked it. It seemed to be tough for some people to wrap their mind around the concept of being introverted and some people came up with the funniest, Squall almost wanted to say 'cutest', theories about an abusive, alcoholic mother of Squall's (Raine never drank) or his missing father, who sucked his cock when he was a baby (like he had even been around when he was that age) or his living killer teddybear (Squall had never had any pets, not even stuffed ones) or any other bullshit imaginable. It was like people couldn't, or wouldn't, accept the fact that the brunette was just the way he was. No, he didn't cut himself. No, he wasn't bulimic. Yes, his father had never been around, but that didn't mean he was fucked mentally because of it. He might've had some autistic traits, but it wasn't because of some traumatic childhood or anything. And fuck, was it cold right now.

"You're quite the internal monologue type, huh?" Seifer interruped his thoughts, and the brunette looked up lazily.

Squall gave him a blank stare, turned around and without another word, started to walk away. He _so_ wasn't in the mood to engage in silly little catfights with crittering lowlifes that roamed the street. Not that he was ever really in the mood for that...

Wanting to groan in annoyance, he heard the guy in question jogging up to him and smirking brightly at him. "Playing hard to get...? You're so ... _cute_."

_Cute? I'm ... what? Am I teddy bear? A toddler with a toothy grin? A fucking kung-fu seal? Cute shouldn't be applied to any person over the age of five. _

"I totally agree," the blonde man nodded busily.

Squall blinked in confusion.

Green eyes were rolled rather dramatically. "I just agreed with whatever thought you came up with in your pretty little head just now. I'm sure it was incredibly.. educating."

"You're weird," the brunette informed him.

Seifer grinned triumphantly. "Compared to _who_?"

The brunette leveled his icy gaze on Seifer's, but remained silent. "Let's go, then."

The blonde looked surprised. "Huh?"

Oh, wonderful, he was already annoying Squall. He was starting to seriously wonder if this guy was any more intelligent than his scatterbrained excuse of a father. He rolled his eyes once more. "That coffee?"

"Oh!" the blonde's voice lit up. "I thought, you..."

Squall had already gone ahead and was looking at Seifer expectantly. The blonde swallowed his words and jogged to Squall's side. Together, they started walking, the usually bustling and lively Deling City quiet and still around them. It wasn't even noon yet, and most people were working, which meant that the gentle rays of a not-yet forceful sun illuminated the winter day without busy people bustling around and destroying that image of peace. _Snow is beautiful_, Squall decided. What was less beautiful was the cold that accompanied it, but he'd just have to deal. Little needles were pinching into his face and head, the only skin Squall had to leave uncovered, his nipples almost painfully rubbing against the material from the inside. His nipples got so sensitive with cold that it was almost unbearable.

The blonde man by his side studied him as though he was a very interesting animal in a zoo, his eyes sparkling with interest, his gaze trailing up and down Squall's body with a kind of spectism he obviously didn't bother to hide. Seifer looked like he hadn't seen a human being in years. His behaviour quickly unnerved Squall, but he kept his mouth shut, quickly approaching the next-best bistro he could see, opening the doors and walking into the warmth, which felt awkwards against his skin and made him shiver.

He didn't even bother to get out of his clothes as he went to a table, sat down, and lazily waited for Seifer to join him, or the waitress to approach, whoever came first, Squall not really caring as his mind started to magically fill itself with pictures of Deling Hotel, which he hoped he'd soon get a chance to reside at and sleep for at least twelve hours. Squall thought he should've been born a cat or a bear, so he would be able to sleep for as long as he wanted whenever he wanted. Sleeping was really the only hobby he had.

He looked up as Seifer sat down, studying the man's handsome features, his broad jaw, green eyes, messily cut blonde hair. He was a handsome, very masculine man. Squall knew that he himself wasn't, that he would always be a _pretty_ man, a beautiful man, but never the sort of man you saw starring in action movies or the kind you saw on the covers of fitness magazines. Seifer seemed to be more of that type, nothing pretty but everything masculine about his broad, strong neck and the shoulders he could make out through his heavy clothing, making Squall's own frail, thin body look like a twig compared to a tree. Squall frowned as he sensed an air of danger around him. Like he was more than met the eye, and not just because of the physical strength he seemed to have.

Something was tugging on Squall's mind.

The brunette cleared his throat. "How did you... want to kill him?"

Seifer looked distracted. "With a gunblade."

Squall had never heard of a gunblade before, so he raised his eyebrows.

Seifer chuckled quietly. "Like the name implies; a gun and a blade at the same time. I've been training with it since I was very little. It's my speciality."

"Had military training?"

"Yeah; I was in Galbadia Garden for a while.." he trailed off. "So, what did your father do?"

"Made me come all the way to Deling and didn't show up," Squall explained curtly. He didn't like talking, he usually didn't when he could avoid it, so his voice sounded a little unused and crackly even to him, even though it was soft and melodious, not high or girly, but very pleasant and gentle. Soft and nice, a stark contrast to his personality. He wished his voice could be icy and cold like the rest of him, just to make that image complete that most people had of him, since it had made a habit of amusing him greatly.

"That sucks," Seifer remarked. When Squall looked at him questionably, he added: "about your dad I mean. It's kinda sucky what he did."

For the first time that evening, Squall's eyes started to fill itself with interest, his lazy boredom fading, his face lighting up at Seifer's words. _That sucks,_ Squall repeated in his mind. He hadn't said 'I'm sorry' or any of that phony bullshit. He had said the truth without being rude. For the first time, Squall looked at Seifer, really looked at him, slight interest awakening.

Squall cleared his throat, but found he couldn't think of anything to say. He just wasn't good with conversations.

Seifer's eyes hardened and they seemd to zoom his face in. The muscles around his thin, but nicely shaped lips tightened up as well. "Have you ever thought about killing yourself?" Seifer's tone didn't change, still as conversational as ever.

Squall looked up, narrowing his eyebrows in distrust.

"Doesn't everybody. Sometimes?" Squall said and shrugged, but his eyes which suddenly had a staring quality to them never left the other man's face.

Seifer's lips turned into a tight smile. "I didn't ask about everybody. I asked about_ you_."

Squall hesitated and he thought.

He thought about all the times he'd felt empty, when he had so desperately wanted to feel life coursing through his veins, all the countless times he had been devastated at how to handle this world, the people in them, and the social code you had to follow or it meant your doom. The way you had to be nice to people even though you secretly despised them just to be another working part of society. Just so you wouldn't make enemies. Squall remembered how his heart had hardened. Gradually, slowly, but surly. He also briefly thought of his sister, Ellione, she who had disappointed him so gravely. But had he ever thought about suicide?

"No," Squall admitted after another pause.

Seifer nodded. "I see. It's true that most people do, though. Are you still in puberty or something?" His eyes held no humour when he said those things, they only spoke of a cruelty that seemed to be lurking just beneath his layer of what little manners he had. Squall, again, got the weird air from this man.

The brunette wrinkled his nose, but remained silent. Maybe he had been too quick to feel any sympathy towards the other man.

The waitress came, took their orders, and quickly retreated again, handing the two men over to a thick miasma of uncomfortable silence that hang itself over their heads as they each stared off into nothingness, not really knowing what to do with their hands and feet. Squall looked down at his hands as he was folding them, his fingers long, thin and pale, a silver ring on each middle finger. His hands were large and his fingers did look very masculine, but they were also very long and slender, almost elegant. The kind of hands you'd expect on a surgeon or a pianist. Squall's eyes trailed over and studied the other man's hands, which were resting, palms down, on the table. The brunette saw nothing but raw masculinity in them, the hand square, the fingers long and thin like his, but stronger, squarer somehow. But, for some strange reason, Squall thought that...

Thin eyebrows were laced into one deep, deep frown as Squall reached over and touched one of Seifer's hands with his own, comparing them, eventually taking it off the the table, putting his palm to the other man's. Seifer's hand was warm, almost sweaty against his own flesh. Squall stared at the two hands intently, before he eventually shifted his gaze to meet Seifer's surprised eyes. The brunette lowered his gaze again. But really, he hadn't been mistaken.

His hands were the same size as Seifer's.

Seifer started to smirk and Squall hastily withdrew his hand again, surprised at his own rash behaviour, knowing it was very, very, _very _unlike him to just go and touch a total stranger when it suited him, seeing as how Squall had never been known for being very much into the whole touchy-feely thing.

"I'm much taller and bigger than you, but your hands are, like, huge," Seifer mused. "Damn, maybe you aren't such a pansy after all." He smirked.

The waitress served their drinks and Seifer paid for them as if it was natural to do so. Squall wanted to pay for his drink, but the blonde just waved dismissively and even gave the waitress a generous tip, at which she blushed furiously at him and stuttered her thanks. She was a rather young but plain-looking waitress, apparently charmed by the young, muscular blonde hunk with the toothy smirk, an observation that didn't surprise Squall at the least. He could see why girls would be attracted to Seifer. To say that Squall didn't have much experience with the other gender would've been a blatant exaggeration, for Squall had little to none he could call his own. But he had read somewhere that they liked the obvious asshole type. He had also had the questionable pleasure to observe that tendency in his dear sister lately.

"I'll show you the way to the hotel as soon as we're done here.. it's in the main street, so you probably wouldn't have missed it anyways. Like I said, I'm staying there too, so it's not a nuisance to me," the asshole said conversationally. It then grinned. "It has a nice roof though, on which you can sit and see all of Deling. I could go up there with you and explain stuff about the city there, so you won't get lost next time your old man dumps you." He laughed.

As Squall looked at him, he felt the mistrust nagging at him, the uneasiness about the whole situation sliding into his mind.

"Why are... helping me? What exactly do you want?" Squall asked.

Seifer grinned. "Do people ever tell you you're weird?"

_All the time, jackass. _

Squall shifted in his seat, his eyes cooling down to a degree that had to be quite some way below zero. "Sometimes."

"Well, they're right. On the one hand, you seem like you just hit puberty, but on the other, there is something intriguing about you..." he trailed off. "Well, let's finish these drinks and get away from the bad air in here and that ugly cunt of a waitress." His eyes glittered.

Squall raised his eyebrows. "She's not ugly."

"She's a woman." Seifer shrugged.

_Oh wonderful. Not only is he an obstrusive asshole, but a misogynist, too? Squall, you got so fucking lucky this time. Congratulations. Shoot yourself in the head and have a happy journey._

"I know you must've heard this a million times already, but: if I lived in your head, I'd charge you a fucking million for noise disturbance. It's gotta be louder than a fucking rock concert."

Squall just snorted as Seifer stood up and walked towards the exit. After weighing his options for a couple of seconds, the brunette got up as well and followed the other man.

They walked in silence towards the center of the city and the closer they got to it, the more people surrounded them, more and more pouring out of street corners, shops, everyhwere. Squall had never felt comfortable around others, but he actually enjoyed the people around them, because they didn't know him, unlike all of Balamb. In Deling, Squall was like everybody else. A stranger. Those people acknowledged his presence, but they didn't actually give a damn about him. Some might've thought he was attractive. Some might've briefly thought he looked like their son/friend/relative, but nevertheless was Squall surrounded by people, yet all alone in this city. _All alone._ It was a thought that was oddly comforting to him. He'd always hated the gossip and the closeness present in his little hicktown. It was ironic how surrounded you were in a small town and how alone you could feel among masses and masses of strangers. Squall distantly started to like the concept of the stranger.

Not long after they'd reached the main road did they enter the Deling City Hotel, a very nice-looking, big hotel, and Squall quickly checked in. Money had never been an issue, of course. They didn't exactly swim in it, but Squall and his mother had never had any reason to complain so far. Raine wasn't married to Laguna anymore, but she must've gotten a nice sum when she had him divorced all those years ago to soothe all that pain of losing the first lady rank and all.

After getting the keys to his room, Squall and Seifer both stepped into the elevator, and, as though it was the most natural thing in the world, Seifer pressed the button for the roof-floor, and before Squall knew it, the elevator was ascending. He shot an annoyed look into Seifer's direction.

"Who said I'd go up there with you?"

"Nobody," Seifer said, smirking. "Can't you just be thankful for everything I did to you?"

"Yeah, it was such a sacrifice on your part." Squall's voice was practically dripping with venomous sarcasm.

"Actually, it was. I'm sure if I had stayed out there longer, ignoring you, I'd have gotten laid with someone worthwhile."

Squall made a disgusted noise, at which Seifer broke out into amused laughter. Squall noticed that he had a very rich, throaty laughter.

The doors of the elevator opened and they stepped out, the cold immediately wrapping itself around Squall. _Not again, _he thought, unnerved, as his body tightened at the sudden assault of the cold, his nipples hardening underneath the fabric. He swore to himself he'd cut the blonde short and move his ass into his hotel room as soon as possible so he could fall into depression in peace. Warm, chatter-free, blonde-guys-with-huge-egos-free peace.

Looking around on the rooftop, he noticed that it was indeed a nice place to be. There were no other people beside them in sight, the roof didn't have any barriers at the edges, so that probably made the place extremely dangerous to children and thelike and therefore many probably avoided it. It was almost.. peaceful. Sure, they could hear the traffic below, but it seemed almost like an untouched spot of earth. Ridiculous once you took into consideration that they were on the roof of a 7 or so stages high building...

Seifer's amused noises snapped Squall out of his thoughts and he turned to look at Seifer, who was leaning against the wall, legs and arms crossed, huge smirk on his face. "What?" the brunette asked.

"A little overwhelmed, aren't we, Squally?"

The brunette snorted. He then pointed to the single bench at the edge of the roof.

Seifer looked surprised. "You want to sit down there? It's snowing, man. It'll be _wet_."

"You're free to keep standing here or going down," Squall answered coolly as he approached the bench, shoved the snow off it and sat down, shivering at the coolness against his butt. He could see the people walking around below him, and he watched them with fascination.

Seifer, of course, had followed him and lowered himself onto the bench next to him.

"Shit!" the blonde exclaimed, jumping off as if a crocodile had bitten into his ass. "Shit, shit, _shit_! That shit's _cold_! How can you motherfucker sit here without losing every feeling in your fucking ass?" he exclaimed, rubbing his butt.

Squall couldn't help feeling slightly amused.

The blonde eventually lowered himself again, all the while cursing under his breath. He actually seemed like he wasn't used to wet snow against his butt, either. Squall had figured everybody from Deling City had to be really comfortable with snow. Be it on their nose or against their precious behinds.

They sat in silence for a while, each taking in the atmosphere and witnessing how the day gradually darkened, the night approaching with big steps, coming to plunge the world into darkness. It wasn't even all that dark yet when many of the lights down in the city, the street lamps as well as some of the glittery neon signs, were switched on, the glow of them brilliant against the snow, colouring the white substance to red and green and yellow. Down there, it was loud. Up here, it was peaceful. The snow was coating Squall's lips, tickling his nose, wetting his hair, and it was quiet. No word was spoken between the two men. Snow was so beautiful. Romantic, calming. It touched something inside Squall that had been left untouched for a very, _very_ long time, a spot inside him that nothing had been able to touch in what must've been years. For a very long time now, Squall had lost all memory of what _emotion_ really felt like. Emotions, the whole arsenal of them, the good, the bad, the mediocre, had long since escaped his grasp.

He sighed and didn't know of what. Content? Regret? _Happiness? Sadness?_

But how could he when he hadn't felt any happiness or sadness, not even the slightest ounce of it, in years?

Squall didn't know how much time had passed (an hour? Two?) when Seifer's rich voice finally cut the silence. "Have you really never thought about killing yourself?" Seifer's voice was calm and velvety that night, clear and stroking. He had a very beautiful voice.

Squall thought, but his thoughts soon abandoned the question he had been asked, and instead started to roam freely. A thought that had been tickling the back of his mind escaped his mouth, a thought whose origin Squall couldn't quite grasp, a thought so strange and foreign that he was entirely unsure of what had caused it.

"Would we be dead if we.. jumped down there?" Squall asked quietly, so quietly that he wondered whether Seifer had even heard him. Squall looked down, saw the shiny streets, the whiteness, the people, and he wondered what it would be like to change that cluttered, yet oddly structured scene by throwing yourself off the building. You would fall, one perfect moment in which you weighed nothing, and in which nothing really mattered. One perfect little moment in which you saw the street racing towards you, but then people would jump away from you with looks of pure shocks on their faces, their high-pitched screams reverberating unpleasantly in your ears. The last thing you would ever hear. Then you would hit the pavement and – yeah, and then...?

"Probably," Seifer answered after a couple of seconds and Squall had to blink in order to remember what the question had been.

"The hotel is quite high," Seifer murmured lowly.

"Mh," Squall answered.

Thick silence hang itself over them again. It stopped snowing.

"If we jumped down there, people would think we were a couple and killing themselves because of their forbidden gay love," he said, amusement in his voice.

"I wouldn't jump," Squall said. "I would go into the sea with her.. even though every creature on this earth dies alone."

"Wow, could it be that you actually spoke your mind this time, Squall? I have to say.. your progress is fascinating."

Squall rolled his eyes. What a way to ruin the moment.

"No, seriously," Seifer said, "it's .. intriguing. You barely talked to me at all when I met you.."

"Have _you_ thought about killing yourself?" Squall asked, not looking at the other man.

Silence.

Squall fumbled with his pocket and produced a cigarette and a lighter, the flame that emerged from the lighter impossibly bright in this dark water painting of a scenery. Squall inhaled deeply, the smoke trailing upwards almost sensually.

"That's a disgusting habit," Seifer said. His voice sounded weak.

"You don't smoke?" the brunette asked quietly.

"I do."

Squall said nothing.

"I think I would prefer to jump.. with him," Seifer said, after what seemed like an eternity, an eternity which had been passed by looking into nothingness, both lost in their own twisted world of thoughts. "It's supposed to be less painful than drowning. But, I have to trust him completely. If one of us hesitates and doesn't jump at three, we wouldn't die together." He hesitated. "Well, as together as we could that is, since, like you said, every creature dies on its own."

Squall hesitated. "You want to jump with.. 'him'?"

"I'm gay," the blonde said disgustedly. "Haven't you noticed?"

"... Should I have?"

"Yeah. Just because I don't _look_ gay like you doesn't mean I'm not."

Squall grumbled in dismay, but didn't reply.

The blonde man laughed throatily. "If that little grumble meant 'I don't look gay' then there's only one thing I have to say to that: yeah, _right._"

Squall just continued to suck on his cigarette, not looking at Seifer but lolling his head back and looking up. The firmanent was clear that night, and there were several stars shining down at them, merrily blinking and saying hello from so far away. The night that had brought those stars had now completely swallowed the light of the day. It was complete, utter night on this winter day in Deling City, probably well after ten PM. They had sat in comfortable silence for so long...

Squall threw his cigarette down into that sea of neon colours that was shimmering up from the city.

"The lights from the city are incredible,"Seifer mused.

Squall just mumbled his agreement.

The blonde shifted himself so he he could stare at Squall's profile. "Are you still a virgin?"

Squall's eyes widened. "_What_?"

"You heard me," Seifer chuckled. "I asked if you were a virgin or not."

Squall shot Seifer a look that suggested murder then demonstratively turned away to gaze at the stars once more.

Seifer laughed. "Oh, right. We share death fantasies, practically philosophize about life together, and you won't even tell me that? True, we don't know each other well at all – but maybe that's just why you can open up to me while you can't to your fellow little sea peasants? You can say things to me without them seeming completely real because I'm not yet a real person to you, right?"

Squall whipped his head around to stare into the other man's face, and he had to swallow as he saw himself confronted by a pair of deep green eyes, that were currently glittering with joy and interest, even though his rather aristocratic, nicely shaped face showed nothing but utter seriousness. The smirk that was usually playing around his lips was painfully missing.

For a while, they just stared at each other.

Squall was a virgin, of course. By choice. There had just never been a girl he had been interested in, not even sexually. He didn't beat off to girly magazines like he knew most of the other guys his age did, nor did he do it to any other pictures on his computer or wherever else they got it from. He jerked off under the shower thinking about nothing, nothing but the feeling of his hand wrapped around his cock and the water trailing down his body and what pleasure that brought him. He'd never even kissed anybody – apart from his mother when he had been really little, but that hardly counted.

"Maybe I am," Squall finally said and stood up. With small, careful steps he walked towards the edge of the roof, looking down at the busy people and the yellow and red and green light from the neon signs advertising night clubs and bars and shops.

He heard Seifer standing up behind and walking towards him. It caught Squall completely off guard when he suddenly felt the strong arms of the other man wrapping around his body, and for one second, in which his heart contracted in his chest, he lost balance, and the streets, the lights, the nirvana of that city came closer to make him think he would fall. He briefly thought he would pass out before the blonde's arms pressed him tightly against his chest. Squall could taste his own heartbeat at the back of his throat.

"Are you crazy!" the brunette exclaimed, struggling against the bigger, bulkier man. "You could've pushed me down the.. mmpf!"

Seifer forcefully pressed his lips against Squall's, his tongue leaking out to lick Squall's lips. The blonde then used his own jaw to open the brunette's almost violently, inserting his tongue into that velvety cavity, taking Squall's kissing virginity as his probing tongue ran across the other man's teeth, licked his inner cheeks, then went on to lick the other man's unmoving tongue, mixing their saliva. Seifer's tongue was hot and.. kind of arousing in Squall's mouth, his saliva tasting of rain and the faint trace of cigarettes and peppermind chewing gums which he had probably consumed not too long ago. As Seifer's soft tongue started to lick Squall's with more demand, the brunette started to reciprocate, going with the flow as their tongues started to rythmically circle each other, making wet sounds as their saliva melted together. Squall gasped against the other man's mouth as he felt Seifer's hands on his ass, pushing Squall's body closer to his own. He could feel that Seifer was rock-hard and that his hands were eager, one squeezing the brunette's right ass cheek, the other slipping beneath the fabric of his clothes to run over his lean chest, brushing his fingers against Squall's erect, sensitive nipples. Squall couldn't help but moan against the blonde's mouth at the sensation.That's when the taller man pushed away, panting.

"It's too cold to continue that here," Seifer muttered. "Why don't we go into my room?"

Squall blinked. He was confused by what had just happened. He'd never thought about men that way.. and he hadn't thought about that particular man in front of him that way either until now. With dismay, Squall noticed that he still had an erection in his pants, just begging to be freed and stroked. Since when had he turned into yet another one of those dorky, horny teenager like all the rest of them?

Wait a minute.. there was definitely something off here. Squall's erection vanished at the sobering realization.

Seifer grinned at him. "We were so depressed and there's no better way of getting rid of this funk than getting horny. Our primal instincts quite effictiently wipe out all coherent thought, don't they?" he laughed, but it sounded half-hearted. Seifer's eyes were still shining with lust, his cheeks were flushed, and Squall could also see that the blonde was still hard. He had to swallow yet again.

"Was that your first kiss?" Seifer asked conversationally.

Squall just gave him a look that suggested he'd do nothing with more pleasure than rip the other's throat out.

"Oh, okay, I'll shut up," Seifer smirked. He stepped closer once more. "So, what about it? Shall we go into my room..?"

_The moment is broken and you know it._

"I'm going into mine now," Squall answered. He was starting to get aware of how cold it really was now.

The look of Seifer was totally, utterly comical. "What?"

Squall rolled his eyes. "Good night, Seifer."

"Hey, wait!" The blonde grabbed the smaller man by the wrist and spun him around.

The brunette had to inhale sharply when Seifer's green vaccuum cups glittered and spilled venom at him, so intense eyes that they were almost hypnotic. He could smell traces of Seifer's scent, that faint oily, yet spicy odour that was partially hidden by his fresh, lemony deodorant. Or was it cologne? If it was, Squall knew he favoured Seifer's natural smell over the cologne, which was, despite its lemony freshness, not half as intriguing or interesting as that spicy scent just underneath...

"I trust we will see each other tomorrow?" Seifer asked. His eyes were hard.

Squall shook his head. "I'm leaving for Balamb tomorrow morning."

Seifer smirked. "No, you're not."

The brunette blinked, irritated. "Why, yes."

"No, because I'm going to show you around Deling tomorrow. Or, do you want to lose the only person you could _ever_ open up to?"

Squall wanted to spit into this annoyingly handsome face, wanted to ask him how the hell he thought he knew what he was doing, to him, or to anybody else, if he knew just how arrogantly he was behaving. He opened his mouth, but no words came out. He shut his mouth again. He heard the faint chatter of people and cars honking, and while he had enjoyed the noise like a distant orchestra before, it was now almost violently forcing itself into his ears, the sound loud in his head. His head started to ache, a dull pain just behind his eyeballs, and he blinked in pain.

"Deling City is a really nice city and I know you can afford staying here for another day, those clothes look darn expensive. I could show you around, to the parks, to the -"

"Whatever," Squall waved his hand dismissively. He then glared at Seifer as he shifted his eyes up to meet the other man's.

Seifer smiled. "That's a yes, then?"

Squall groaned, but both knew that it was indeed a yes. Without another word, Squall turned to leave. Just before he stepped into the elevator, he heard Seifer's voice again, yelling: "Good night, Squall! It was nice meeting you!"

So he had said that phony line after all. Oddly enough, though, given the situation, it was probably kind of.. _appropriate_.

A deep frown was carved into the brunette's features as he pushed the buttons of the elevator.

**to be continued**

(please review)


	2. Let it cleanse my mind

A/N: Okay, here's Chapter 2! I'm sorry for not having posted anything in so long, but I was travelling around Europe for the past 5 weeks, like I posted in my profile. I was in France, Spain, Portugal, the Netherlands and Belgium. It made me feel just humming with life, cheerfulness and confidence, the exact opposite of what I am like at home. Travelling really cleansed my soul.

Chapter 2 is pretty hentai, too. It's getting worse and worse. Pretty soon, I'll have to move this to I couldn't help the hentai demon. Seifer and Squall are just too sexy together, aren't they?

Thank you so much for reviewing my fic! Really, really thank you. Every single one of the reviews I received meant a lot to me and I'm very grateful and happy. :)

_Melancholy Requiem_

_by Cosina Veloce_

_Chapter 2: Let it cleanse my mind_

There was just something about taking a bath.

The feeling of the hot water all around you and how it seemed to untie the knots in your muscles, how the water appeared to seep into your brain, making it warm, gushy, macerating it, effectively silencing every thought that might've lurked there. Squall briefly wondered if the feeling of it would resemble the feeling of death in any way. After all, hot water soaked the brain, just like Squall imagined death would. Eventually. When the time came.

He had always liked baths, ever since he could remember, and perhaps beyond. Not just baths, either. _Water._ He loved the cleansing quality it had to it. How consuming it was... how essentially peaceful, how _lonely _it could be

Squall cocked his head back and allowed his ears to go underwater. He could clearly hear his own heartbeat in the small bathtub and he closed his eyes, sighing contently. With his right hand, he slowly trailed his hand upwards, over his thin thighs up to his flat stomach, the few abdominal muscles he had contracting under his testy hands, then travelling up to his heaving breadbasket, slowly caressing the place where the beating drum lay just underneath. He pressed his fingers against his chest, the heartbeat underneath fluttering against his fingertips like the meek tries of a butterfly, so delicate under his hands, so prominent in his ears.

When Squall concentrated, sometimes, he thought he could feel the blood exploding into his veins. A delicate, heady feeling.

Blissfully floating in his mindless state, Squall's mind wandered from one topic to the next and back again without really being able to fully comprehend any of the things, and as his hand travelled down again to his cock, he gasped quietly. The pressure of the water pressing against his ears and the dull sound it brought with it started to combine itself with the heartbeat, bleeding together into heady noise that was filling him up as he was slowly starting to jerk himself off, the warm, laming pleasure his hand was giving him adding to the soaked mix in his head that had now extincted every thread of coherent thought. He gave in to the water and the pleasure.

Suddenly, a loud bang erupted from somewhere and, yelping, Squall jerked, coughing violently as his nose very briefly got underwater, his forehead starting to burn with the soapy bath water that had entered his nostrils. Gasping, he sat up in the tub, his wet bangs trailing down into his eyes, his eyes and nose stinging from the bubble water. "What... the..._ fuck_?"

"Yo, Squall, time to get up! Come on, my little play kitten. Sun's up. You shouldn't miss the experience of Deling City on a bright morning day – it's quite breathtaking, I assure you."

It took the brunette a couple of moments to collect his scattered thoughts. "...Seifer?"

"Of course, it's me. Remember that annoyingly handsome, golden blonde guy you met – and by the way passionately made out wi-"

"Seifer," Squall interrupted him. "You're _dead_. Dead, you hear me?"

He just heard Seifer chuckle. "You're getting me quite interested in just what I interrupted you with. Open the door."

"No _fucking_ chance," Squall spat disgustedly, preparing to settle down into the water once more.

"No chance? Oh, I think there is," Seifer chuckled evilly. "Mh, let me think, how could I convince you to come and open the door for me? Mh.. toughie. Tough. Mh. How about I sing a song for you? I'm a passionate singer, you see. I'm sure you _adore_ love songs, don't you just?"

It took Squall a good while to press out a weak: "I'm gonna kill you."

"Come out and try," Seifer exulted.

Making a sour face, Squall got out of the bath, pulled the plug and wrapped a towel around his hips, lazily looking at himself in the mirror above the sink. For someone who cared so little about being attractive and hence never engaged in any sports whatsover, he had a pretty defined body, especially in the abdominal area. Squall chalked it up to the fact that he was so thin, which made the little muscle he did have visible, giving the illusion of a trained, fit body, whereas in reality he couldn't remember having worked out in .. well, ever? Seifer seemed to like sports way more than he did, judging by that rather muscular body.. not that he had seen it, but it had felt rather hard and defined against him the night before...

The brunette groaned inwardly, throwing the next best T-shirt in his immediate reach over his body, not even looking or caring what it was. All his efforts went into making himself look as menacing as humanly possible as he opened the door, wanting Seifer to be able to read death and murder in his eyes. It didn't really work, since Seifer started to break out into hysterical laughter as soon as Squall's oh-so-menacing frame set foot into the hallway. Squall's carefully though-out death and murder expression dropped and got replaced by glaring question marks.

Squall's eyebrows were laced into the most venomous frown as he silently watched the laughing Seifer, silently weighing his options. He could shut the door and wait until the other man left to board the next train home. Of course, that might also mean he would end up jumping out of the window, as he thought of the other man as a bit of the persistent type. He could also slam into the other man and just go. Well, a little unpractical considering the blonde probably outweighed him by like fifty pounds and considering he was clad in a towel and all. Even though he was dying to see Deling City's reaction to his curious choice of clothing, he had the distant feeling it would end in a not-so-pleasant situation. Like, him in prison or something.

He briefly wondered whether he had dropped the towel and hot white shame shot through him at the mere possibility of this humiliation, but one quick glance assured him that the towel was still quite firmly placed where it was supposed to be.

"That... that shirt," Seifer pressed out between laughter.

Squall briefly studied his shirt. "Okay..?"

Seifer finally composed himself, but the smirk remained. "It's pink."

The brunette patiently waited for the other man to continue. When he didn't, he wet his lips. "So?"

"Squall, it's a pink _girl's_ top! Also, it's too tight. It shows off part of your stomach."

"I sleep in my sister's clothes. Sometimes."

The blonde shook his head. "They're your sister's clothes? I didn't know you had one."

"Yeah, obviously, since I sort of never told you," Squall said, annoyed.

Seifer just continued to chuckle. "You're so _gay_, Squall."

The smaller boy shrugged. "If you say so."

Seifer was visibly getting massive kicks out of the situation. "So, you guys close?"

Squall just gave him a look.

"I mean the owner of those clothes of so very exquisite taste and so very-"

"I know who you _meant_," Squall snapped.

"My, we're so catty this morning," Seifer teased. "I can only wonder what the reason for that is. Is it a) you hate mornings or b) you just hit puberty and got first hair on ball?"

Squall didn't even dignify that with a response. Instead, his cool gaze remained on the blonde's face.

Some of the teasing humour left Seifer's face. "You didn't answer my question."

"She's none of your business."

"You said that already. Maybe you should start thinking of more original things to say."

Squall groaned inwardly and asked himself just why exactly he had let the other man force him into agreeing to see him again this day. Actually, he should've never had agreed to go for a drink with the blonde in the first place. Things would be so peaceful if he'd never had the misfortune to run into this burly man's sickly, so very confidently grinning mug. Raising his eyebrows, he plunged his gaze into the other man's, forcing his eyes onto them, silently fighting for dominance. The green orbs of the other man flared up as if illuminated by a burning green fire, and they slightly narrowed as they accepted the silent challenge that Squall's grey eyes had offered, no, forced upon them. There was something in Seifer's eyes that was irritating. Something he couldn't place.. something lurking just underneath the glittering delight.

They didn't know how long they stared at each other, maybe a minute, maybe ten, maybe thirty. Eventually, the green eyes softened, and Squall realised what he had seen in them.

It had been sorrow.

It was Seifer who broke the eye contact. Lowering his gaze, he said quietly: "All right, I'll give you ten minutes to get dressed in something I won't be too embarrassed to be seen in public with – or pestered by old horny men with. So go and get dressed in something decent. High school or police uniforms preferred. Have a thing for those."

Squall couldn't resist looking at Seifer for another couple of seconds, wanting to lock their gazes once more, but the blonde avoided his searching glare. There was a small smile playing around the bigger man's lips, but it didn't resemble the smiles, grins and smirks Seifer had given him before.

Shrugging, Squall decided to let it go and just as he was about to close the door behind him, Seifer spoke up again: "Towel was a good choice though."

Squall mumbled something under his breath as he shut the door with a tad more force than necessary.

---

As much as Squall disliked the other man, he hadn't lied back when he'd said that Deling City on a bright winter morning was quite lovely. The sun was shining down in such a mild quality that only winter mornings had to them, and the busy life that had been pulsing through the streets the previous evening had vanished. Oh, it wasn't anywhere near as peaceful or quiet as Balamb fucking City was no matter the time of day, but while the bustling life and the many people had prevented Squall from taking in the city's architecture and unique character the day before, all these things were nicely, openly presented to him that morning. Seifer had also turned out to be a decent, rather competent tour guide, avidly explaining the sights to the smaller man as they slowly passed them.

Squall had also learned from his mistakes and had dressed very warmly that day. Underneath his thick leather coat that went down over part of his thighs, he was wearing an azure blue pullover that didn't quite match his grey eyes, but nonetheless looked nice against his skin tone and the coat of expensive dark leather he was so very fond of wearing. He had decided the muscle shirt he had worn the previous day had been a _rather_ mediocre choice.

"So, what else do you want to see?" Seifer asked. "The Museum of Ancient Centra Art, perhaps?"

Squall shrugged.

"I admire your determination," Seifer remarked dryly.

"You were right," Squall mused.

"I know."

"You do?"

"Naturally. I always am."

The brunette just eyed him.

"All right, all right. What do you mean?"

"It's nice," Squall said.

"Deling morning are peaceful. They are quite deceiving. No matter what it looks like, this city isn't what it appears to be on some nice, quiet, mild mornings. Deling City is the drug and sex capital of Gaia. It's always dangerous. Don't forget that."

_And why should that make me like this city less? What's it with people and their self-centeredness about what they call 'danger'? _

Squall mumbled something under his breath, which made Seifer look at him intently, studying his face.

"Up there is the _Arc de Triomphe_," Seifer announced, causing Squall to look up and look at what they were approaching, the golden silhouette of the Arc soon coming into view, looking mild and friendly like that, bathed in the soft rays of the sun. It was quite the sight. Of course, Squall had seen many pictures of the Arc before, as it was quite famous not only for its touristy value and being part of Deling's trademark, but allso because there had been many news of suiciders throwing themselves off the Arc, splattering themselves all over the streets, the very streets Squall was walking on at that moment. He looked down, watching the cement fly by, watching its flaws, dirt, thrown away cigarettes or used chewing gums.

Squall's mind had to briefly think of a graveyard. A graveyard of unwanted, useless things.

"Many people died here," Squall muttered, not realising he was actually saying it out loud.

"..Huh?" Seifer asked.

Squall blinked. "Hm?"

"Many people died here?" Seifer echoed.

Frowning, Squall realised he must've said it out loud, something that made him distinctly uncomfortable. "Suicide."

It was almost comical as Seifer's eyebrows laced together in a poor copy of the frown so unique to Squall as he studied the younger man intently. "You mean the Arc has become a suicide spot?"

"_You're_ the tourist guide."

"Ah, yeah," Seifer quickly ran his hands through his hair, laughing quietly. Did Squall read that incorrectly or were those signs of nervousness? "I haven't really been to Deling in a while, even though I was born and raised here. Well, people keep telling me I don't look very Galbadian, but I am, so yeah."

Squall wanted to ask where he'd been before he returned to Deling so recently, but restrained himself. He felt like it really wasn't any of his business, and he was flustered by the slight spark of interest that had arisen in him when Seifer had spoken.

"So, this is the Arc of Deling City," Seifer said. He'd lost the nervous edge he had so briefly flashed before and had returned to being the cocky asshole he'd been before.

"Let's go in there," Seifer nodded with his head to a door that was on one side of the Arc, partially hidden by its non-descript colour.

Squall just looked at him. "What for?"

"So you can suck my cock without it turning into an ice rod," Seifer answered matter-of-factly.

Squall's eyes widened ever so slightly.

Seifer groaned. "It was a _joke_! You know what that is, right?"

"I might have heard of it," Squall said, sourly.

"Squall, I'm shocked. Was that a slight attempt at _humour_?"

"No," the brunette answered coolly, deliberately ignoring the other man's stare. "So, what's in there?"

Seifer just shrugged and went to open the door and after a few minutes in which Squall just sort of stood there and watched the bigger man fumble around his pockets, he sighed and caught up with Seifer, staring blankly at him as the other man did something to the doorknob that made Squall's eyebrows raise so high he figured they were close to falling off his head. It almost looked like he was... lockpicking the door.. with a hairpin.

"... What... the...?" Squall started, just as the door clicked open with an audible click and a huge, satisfied grin started to spread itself out on the blonde's handsome face. He triumphantly pushed the door apart and entered into a lukewarm room, on whose far end Squall could make out a ladder of some kind, and on whose carpet was a comfortable couch and an old TV-set that looked used, almost homely.

Seifer studied the room. "Last time I was here, it was blank. Guess they have somebody guard the room now, ever since.. the Arc was manipulated into capturing that Sorceress all those years ago." Seifer's voice was thick with something that the brunette had a hard time placing. Maybe it was memories, he knew they tended to be powerful to some people. Maybe sorrow, like the brief, but powerful kind he had seen shining in that amazing pair of green earlier. Maybe both. Maybe neither.

The brunette cleared his throat, erasing those thoughts from his head. "But it's empty?"

"It's likely that they only guard it during the night or on special occassions," Seifer shrugged. "It's much warmer in here. Today it's me who hasn't dressed warm enough, it seems."

Squall eyed Seifer's dark blue coat, noticing that it indeed looked like it was really thin, but of course he couldn't tell what the other man was wearing underneath. Sighing, he watched as Seifer slumped down on the couch, moaning in delight at the apparent softness of it, pressing his back into the green linen. He then turned on the TV and started to zap through the channels, sighing as he found one he seemed to like, a smile on his face.

Squall, who had approached the couch himself for lack of anything better to do and feeling rather dorky standing near the door twiddling his thumbs, had a hard time keeping his jaw from dropping. "You're watching... erm"

"_Galbadian Idol,_" Seifer stated emotionlessly.

"Erm..."

"Hey, it got a lot better after they kicked bouncy-tit Vaalya out! It looked like she was defying every single physical law there was. I'll never get what women need those huge, fatty globes for. So, now I'm cheering for Nanda. He's got a _great_ ass."

"..."

"He does!" Seifer exclaimed. "Just look at it!"

"Whatever you say, Seifer."

Seifer just snorted and focused his attention back on the screen, where some dark-haired man with what looked like a fit body was singing a romance song into the microphone, one with lyrics so cheesy, corny and sugary that Squall felt the silent need to check just how many pounds he'd gained just from listening to this syrup-spewer. Inwardly shivering, he watched the man doing silly dance moves that were meant to accompany the diebetes-inducuing singing gracefully, but only managed to make the performance even dorkier than it already was, seeing as how it made Squall think of a dancing Behemoth wearing cement shoes. The brunette's cold eyes shifted to Seifer, who was staring at the TV intently, a faint smile around his lips.

Squall shook his head.

_Here I am_, he thought, _watching Galbadian Idol of all things in an illegally lock-picked survey room with a complete stranger who's offered to kill my father._

Squall shook his head again and again. He suddenly felt a very weird feeling inside him. It was amusement, almost like a tiny explosion of joy somewhere inside him, shining through his eyes, not turning his lips into a smile, not even close, but still _there_, somewhere inside him. _Amusement_. Heck, he hadn't felt it in a while.

Reluctantly, Squall took off his leather coat, revealing the blue pullover underneath, and then lowered himself onto the couch next to Seifer to silently watch the show.

"I didn't think you were the type to like... _Galbadian Idol_," Squall remarked dryly as he passively watched the next candidate enter the stage.

Seifer chuckled quietly. "I used to hate it, too. I always thought it was stupid and useless and.. it kind of is. But I had to watch it for the past year or so, so it's grown on me. Eventually I just thought it would be easier for me to like it, so I did."

The brunette just nodded, and silence hung itself over their heads, with Squall sitting awkwardly on the coach, watching the trivial show with bored, uninterested eyes. Seifer eventually shrugged out of his dark blue coat, revealing a black t-shirt of some sort. It was kind of baggy, and what was drawn and written on it immediately drew Squall's attention.

On the black shirt there was the white silhouette of a little chicken baby. There was also 'good at karate' written on it, and an arrow that pointed to the chick. There was just something about that in all actuality rather silly shirt that Squall immediately liked, and for quite a while, he couldn't take his eyes off it, carefully taking in the sloppy silhouette of the chicken and the messily drawn arrow.

"That's... cute," Squall remarked.

"Huh?" There was genuine surprise in Seifer's voice.

"The karate fowl."

"Oh, that," Seifer answered, laughing. "I thought it was kind of funny when I bought it. I didn't think you'd like it, though."

"You don't know anything about me," Squall said. It was a very cold, detached and unfriendly thing to say, but out of Squall's mouth, it sounded matter-of-factly.

Seifer made an amused noise. "Actually, now that you say it, I should have figured you'd love it, seeing as how you seem to have a thing for cute and girly clothes. Speaking of, you never answered that question I asked you this morning..."

The brunette didn't answer and Seifer started to switch channels as the last 'singer' left the stage. After zapping for a while, he eventually settled on a music channel of some sort, letting soft rock music fill the otherwise quiet room.

"I don't have a sister, nor any other relatives that I know of. But there was a girl who used to be my best friend, who was like a sister to me," the blonde said quietly.

The brunette looked at the other man, not knowing what to say.

"She died." Seifer said.

For a long moment, the words just sort of hung in the room like they were still present. They were sending their waves through the room, visibly forcing themselves between the two men, reverberating in the brunette's ears. Squall shifted uncomfortably, looking over at the blonde whose eyes had glazed over and who stared at his hands.

"Her name was Rinoa," Seifer said, his voice now thick. "I was very fond of her."

Squall wanted to say something, but his voice came out as little more than a crackly hiss. He cleared his voice. "I thought you hated women."

The smirk returned to his face, but it seemed half-hearted. Some of his golden blonde hair that he had messily gelled back had gotten loose and was now hanging down into his eyes, a little curly strand that fell right over his right eye, obscuring the brilliantly jade coloured iris. He blew up into it, his eyes sparkling more than usual the moment his breath swept over them.

"She just might have something to do with it," the blonde said lowly.

Squall kept quiet and started to think of his sister. Ellone, only a few years older than him, pretty girl-next-door face, nice and gentle demeanour. That was how she'd been until a few years ago, up until her boyfriend had broken up with her and she'd turned into a very conflicted young woman, one that had shut her younger brother out of her world, one that had dismissed her younger brother's tries to keep her in his life with a mere shrug, one who had busied herself with what Squall considered to be all the wrong friends.

He'd adored her all the way through his childhood and early teens. Simply _adored_ her. And he still loved her, but he missed the old Ellone, the one that had he had wanted to protect, the one who'd had embraced him whenever she thought he'd needed it, the one who _hadn't_ started to ignore him. It wasn't like she was trying to hurt him or anything. She'd simply turned into a conflicted, often very depressed young woman, way too self-absored to take care of her sensitive younger brother. Squall knew that it was something that just happened to some people as they got older. As they lost the innocence of youth. As time slowly but surely took away all the carefreeness, which had been just as much of a typical trait to many young people as it had been to Ellione. At first, Squall had tried time and time again to break through to his sister and he'd only recently given up on it, realizing that if there was one thing Squall Leonhart, son of Laguna Loire, president of Esthar, could not do, it was stopping or turning back the merciless hands of time that had separated him and Ellione in a slow, crawling, yet so horribly natural manner.

Squall was so wrapped up in his thoughts he didn't hear Seifer's slow approach and it was only when Seifer gently put his arms around the smaller man that Squall was jerked out of his musings. He sat up straight as he felt the other man's warm body pressing against his, not violently or brutally, but gently, yet still with enough force that it made the brunette aware of the fact that the other man was far stronger and heavier than him, that there was demand in the way his strong arms with the muscles playing just underneath that flawless skin wrapped around his rigid body. Warm pleasure, mingled with the surpressed urge to giggle and shiver, ran through him as he felt Seifer's wet, hot tongue playing with his ear, slowly tipping itself into Squall's sensitive penna. The brunette started to feel warm arousal spreading throughout his body at the soft, yet demanding tongue, Seifer's hot breath against his ear, his strong arms around him, his unique scent travelling into his nose, making him dizzy. It was just so much stimulation at once, the feeling, the hot breath that went shivers down his spine, the scent, that it made Squall temporarily forget about all his musings, causing him to just close his eyes, giving in to the feeling of Seifer all around him. He almost groaned in dismay as he suddenly missed the feeling of that soft tongue that had traced the lines of his ear a moment before.

"Why won't you stay for another day?" Seifer whispered into the other man's ear, lowering his masculine, deep voice into a husky, promising breath before he commenced kissing, but abandoning the ear and trailing down to the brunette's neck, licking, biting and kissing the sensitive flesh there, provoking a soft moan to leave Squall's rosy lips.

"I.. can't," Squall pressed out.

Seifer stopped the kisses and looked up. "Why not?"

The brunette met the blonde's gaze. "Tomorrow is Monday," he explained calmly. "School."

"Oh, how cute," Seifer cooed. "You're a schoolboy! I like schoolboys. It's the uniform that does it."

Squall made an annoyed face.

"Sorry," Seifer smirked. "You're a schoolboy. That's cute and all, but knowing you, you're a good student, right? Who's ever heard of a student who can't afford to skip school for a day or two every once in a while?"

Indifferently, Squall just continued to stare.

Seifer put on a seductive smile and he pressed his body against the other man more urgently, his hand busily travelling up and down the sitting man's body, stopping on his belly. "Come on," he whispered, burying his face in Squall's chocolate-coloured bangs, breathing in the scent of Ellone's lavender shampoo. "Just for one more day, mmkay?"

Squall grunted, feeling the arousal coming back at the feeling of Seifer's body pressing against his, his hot breath sweeping lightly over the brunette's sensitive neck. He shivered once more at the feeling of it, distantly wondering how the other man had known that his neck was one of his most sensitive body regions, how the kisses and the hot breath affected him, how they fogged his brain. He moaned lowly, giving in to the feeling of the other man once more, but opening his eyes again when he felt the blonde fumbling with his belt. The reflex to stop Seifer rose up inside him, but before he had decided what to do, he already felt the belt opening, the button and zipper following suit, and before he had time to comprehend the situation, he felt Seifer's hand wrapping around the head of his cock, tightly pressed against him due to the tight nature of the pants he was still wearing. Squall's eyes widened.

"Shhh," Seifer murmured, placing light kisses on Squall's neck.

Squall bit down on his lower lip as he felt the other man's hand awkwardly caressing the head of his penis, not really having enough space to really stroke it. Seifer eventually just placed his thumb directly on the head and pulled the foreskin over the head with two fingers, producing not much, but enough stimulation to make Squall gasps and shiver at the alien sensation of a foreign man's hand down his pants, pleasuring him. Hot white shame poured through his veins, but the silent screams of the shame were quickly suffocated by the pleasure that now took the lead.

Seifer started to draw circles with his tongue on the other man's neck, but then stopped. "You have to get your pants down your knees for this to really work, you know," he said lowly.

Squall blinked. "... What?"

The blonde chuckled in amusement. "Your pants. Take them off."

In some part of Squall's mind, which was mostly fogged by heavy clouds of arousal, there was the wild demand to say 'no', to stop Seifer, the impulse to get up and leave despite the throbbing urge for release. It was an impulse that was getting less and less significant by the second. Lost in the battling urges, Squall jerked away almost violently when the loud wail and the wet smash somewhere near forcefully reached his ears, causing the brunette to jump right to the opposite end of the couch, shocked look artfully drawn across his face.

"What the...?" Squall hissed.

Seifer looked equally surprised. "What the fuck was that? Hey.. where are _you_ going? Are you nuts!"

Squall had gotten up, hastedly fastened his belt and was on his way to the door. He didn't even turn around at Seifer's exlaim.

The blonde got up and ran after Squall, catching him by the arm just before he could reach the door, turning him around. Squall saw himself confronted by two glittering green eyes that were glaring into his almost hatefully. "Are you fucking bonkers? You can't go out there! There are people outside and we are _not_ supposed to be in here!" He scanned Squall's body sceptically. "What's with you, anyways?"

The brunette swallowed. "I think someone died out there just now."

Looking into Seifer's eyes for several more beats, he eventually freed himself from the blonde's arms and, without another word or glance, opened the door and stepped out. Noon light fell into the darkened room, gently illuminating it with it's warm, mild rays. Warm, mild and innocent like nothing else was at that moment.

---

Squall had never seen a dead person before.

Sure, sometimes, when he'd been extremely bored, he might have switched on the TV and passively watched some hack and slash or otherwise stupidly brutal movie, but back then, he'd only felt a deep indifference towards the crude exaggeration of death that he'd almost found distantly amusing.

_His face had been totally smashed. Red blood, so very red, much redder than in those movies. Brilliantly red. And white, gooey white. _

Seifer sat on the floor, a joint hanging between his lips, looking up at the smoke he was blowing, the soft fogginess of the weed overlaying his usually so brilliant jade coloured eyes, which now had a hardness and thoughtfulness about them that not even the drug could really soften. The sweet, herbal smell filled the room, forcing its way into Squall's nostrils.

"Squall?" Seifer asked quietly.

"Hm?" the brunette answered, staring into nothingness.

"I'm scared of death," Seifer said. His voice almost broke as he quietly muttered those words, taking another drag of his joint before he carelessly stubbed it out on an ash tray. He blew the last bit of the smoke out of his mouth. "I'm really scared of it. So.. much."

"Think of rainbows," Squall said quietly.

"Rainbows?" Seifer echoed.

"Whenever I'm scared.. I think of rainbows. They're so full of colours they can fill your vision, your thoughts, with colours."

"Rainbows..." Seifer trailed off. "You know, Squall, this is not the first time I've seen a corpse. It's not really the reason why I'm in this state now. Seeing that man just..." Seifer grumbled, "I don't know, I guess it brought reality back to me. The past two days have been pretty special.. and different."

Squall didn't really understand what Seifer was talking about, but he was starting to have his suspicions. He knew there were things about this blonde man that he didn't exactly know about, but whose lingering darkness he could distantly sense. He briefly wondered about the other man and how much of what he was rambling about was due to the weed he'd consumed, until his musings were interrupted by the destroyed face of the man who had killed himself that day. Squall winced.

"You're lucky everything was in such a chaos nobody really noticed us coming out ot there."

Squall was quiet for a long time. "Why... why do you think he did that..?"

"Who knows," Seifer answered quietly. "Don't you sometimes wonder whether anyone would be sad when you died...?"

Squall looked up. "What..?"

"You heard me," Seifer said, looking away as though embarrassed, playing with the silver ring on his middle finger. He then suddenly laughed, but it was not a very happy laugh. "Isn't it strange, Squall? It's like the human being is so full of insecurities it needs others to convince it of its own values. Like every creature is more concerned about what sort of impact it has on other creatures than what's going on in itself. It's so strange, Squall, isn't it?" He got up, approaching the sitting Squall, who just regarded him out of cool eyes. "I hate this." Seifer announced, anger starting to fill his eyes. "And don't just sit there, but answer me, you snotty princess!"

Squall said nothing.

Groaning in frustration, Seifer sat down next to Squall and grabbed his shoulders, lightly shaking them. "You heard me!" he demanded, but stopped when Squall's eyes focused on his own.

"There is so much sorrow in you," Squall said, in a voice so quiet it bordered on being a whisper. "So.. so much. It's overwhelming me. And it's overwhelming you." His voice had gone quieter with every word until it was almost impossible to understand his softly whispered words. "Why is there so much sorrow in you, Seifer?"

Seifer's eyes widened. He didn't say anything for a long, long while and when he did, it was so quietly, Squall almost wanted to ask him if he'd heard right. "I'm not what you think I am."

Squall frowned. "What do I think you are, then?"

"I don't know.. normal?"

Squall raised an eyebrow. "You kidding me?"

Seifer laughed bitterly. "Okay, stupid suggestion."

"You're weird," Squall said quietly.

The blonde looked up. "Compared to _who_?" He then smiled a small smile. "You remember? We said the exact same thing to each other when we met yesterday. Hey, it was only yesterday. It feels like it was much longer.."

"A lifetime," Squall said, his voice dripping with irony.

"Shut up. We're not that sappy yet." He looked at Squall for a moment. "You realize you just asked me questions for the first time? You even managed to say more than just one sentence. I'm awfully impressed."

Squall just frowned in response.

The blonde's spirits were visibly gone, and he looked pretty drawn out, even as he was studying the brunette's frown with interest. Though a small smile had returned to his lips, his smirk was painfully missing, and he looked very tired and out of spirits as he wordlessly switched on Squall's TV, settling back as though it was the most natural thing in the world, zapping through the channels.

"I hope you know you'll sleep in _your _room tonight," the smaller man said with what he hoped was politeness.

"Mh? Oh. Oh, yeah, sure. I'm not gonna sleep." Seifer gabe a mumbled response, settling on another music program of some sort, lazily watching some dancing women. "Oh, and, Squall?" Seifer asked, lazily.

"Mh?"

"I didn't mean that whole snotty princess thing. You're okay."

Squall hesitated. "Maybe you are, too."

Seifer mumbled. Squall thought it sounded like a satisfied mumble.

**to be continued**

**(please review)**


	3. I feel free

A/N: Okay, finally uploading Chapter 3 now. Finally getting back into the whole writing thing! (travelling slightly threw me off the track). To answer some questions/issues that were brought up in reviews: no, Seifer isn't a ghost. This is not a supernatural fic. And yes, I've assumed the role of a narrator that is only aware of Squall's feelings and thoughts, not of Seifer's, and therefore isn't an all-knowing 3rd person narrator. I'll change that a bit for the Epilogue though... but you'll see. :) Also, I'm sorry if I'm stepping into any clichés or if the story has been done before! I'm not aware of clichés because I rarely read fanfiction, sadly.

As always, thanks so very much for reviewing. I don't know whether I'd have the motivation to edit and upload all chapters without reviews, so just: thank you!

Chapter 3 is a bit more light-hearted than the previous 2 chapters. Don't think it'll stay that way, though. Remember, I'm evil and hentai.

_Melancholy Requiem_

_by Cosina Veloce_

_Chapter 3: I feel free..._

The first thing Squall thought when he woke up that morning was 'shit'. Shit, it was already morning and he'd slept from last afternoon to now. Shit, it was Monday and he was definitely not where his teachers wanted him to be right now. And shit, to top it all off, there was something in bed with him.

Squall groaned deep in his throat, distantly wondering just that something was that was heavily pressing against his windpipe. Lazily fluttering his eyelids, he turned his head to the right and looked right into the peacefully sleeping face of Seifer, his hair hair tousled, a small, healthy blush on his cheeks, breathing quietly. He looked younger than Squall that moment with his golden hair in spiky disarray, a healthy rosy tint to his tanned skin, his arm on Squall's chest that was currently about to cut off Squall's oxygen as it was a pretty long, pretty muscular, pretty _heavy_ arm. Groaning in dismay, Sqall removed the arm from his chest, staring disbelievingly at Seifer as he not so much as grumbled at the brunette touching him.

_And he said he would not fall asleep in my bed, _Squall thought sourly. "Hey," he mumbled. "Asshole. This is _my_ bed."

Seifer just mumbled something in response, smiling a small smile in his sleep, looking like he was having a happy dream. Squall poked him into the chest, but Seifer only stirred and soon relaxed again. Squall dimly wondered how that guy could sleep so long. The brunette himself felt very heavy and logy, having slept too long and too heavily, feeling just like turning around and sleeping more even though he had more than slept his daily pensum already. He tried to remember last night, but could only recall watching some stupid TV show and exchanging a couple of phrases with Seifer every once in a while. About Deling. About the shows. About whose ass was nice, a discussion that had mostly consisted of Seifer yapping and Squall contributing occassional 'mmh's'. About whether Squall's eyes were bluish grey or greyish blue or even 'bley', one of Seifer's original word creations. That sort of thing.

Squall shuddered as he remembered the ruined face of the guy the day before, his ruined mass of brains, eyes, blood and other things, silently thanking whoever was in charge of it for not having sent him a bad dream about the corpse.

They had pretty much been in a trance the day before, from when they had seen the corpse to when Seifer had fallen asleep next to him, right in the middle of a sentence about _Galbadian Idol_. The dead person had shocked Squall right down to his very core. It had... Squall angrily shook his head, closing his eyes until he could see stars. He didn't want to think about that now. He wanted to forget about those masses of blood and brains that had once been a face, perhaps a handsome one, a face with eyes, maybe expressive ones like Seifer had. He quickly checked his watch. _8:47. Monday._

Oh, how the brunette had always hated monday mornings, for as long as he could remember. Monday, that was when he had to leave his room in which only Squall and the few people he allowed entrance existed and the day on which he had to return to school, sitting there for hours and hours on end, listening to the lectures with half his brain, at best, while the other half was busily entangled in his own world. Squall Leonhart was a good and diligent student, though, not because he cared very much, but because he knew that it made Raine happy, and also because it wasn't very hard to get good grades as long as he showed up everyday and looked at his notes for ten minutes every day before school started. He also read through them on breaks, since there wasn't much else do to on them. He sure wasn't about to form giggly cirlces and engage in mundane chit-chat about the most mundane bullshit with his even more mundane classmates anytime soon, so reading through notes he'd already memorized seemed like a bearable alternative. Nonetheless, Squall had never, ever skipped a day of school. Mainly because he knew that once he indulged himself in his own world completely without letting the real world have at least this tiny bit of him, at least his physical attendance, he would soon stop coming to school at all, letting the possibility of skipping consume him.

Squall groaned as he remembered his mother. Oh right, Raine. He had forgotten to call her last night and she was probably sick with worry, had called him at least a dozen times. He'd have to get his cell phone out of his bag and check.

Sighing, he leaped onto his bare feet, as gracefully as his body would permit, which was so heavy with too much sleep that it was still lightly fogging his brain, which in turn caused him not to stand up quite as gracefully as he would have on most mornings. Well, fuck this. The last couple of days had definitely not been like most days, so he was not surprised that this morning hadn't turned out to be quite that usual either. Something else that definitely didn't happen on most mornings that occurred that morning was a strong hand grabbing his wirst, yanking him backwards and causing Squall to clumsily lower himself back on the bed. He yelped in surprise.

"Morning, Squall," Seifer said.

Squall huffily wrestled his wrist free, shooting Seifer a look that suggested murder.

"Not a morning person, I take it," the blonde yawned. "What's the time, babe?"

Squall raised his eyebrows at the uncalled-for nickname. "Can you read alarm clocks?"

"Uh, yes?" Seifer answered sleepily.

"Then do so," Squall spat, hurriedly jumping off the bed. He fished his cell phone out of his bag._ 24 missed calls. _Squall groaned lowly. He'd totally forgotten about her the day before.

"Your mom?" Seifer asked.

"Yeah," Squall muttered moodily, stuffing the cell phone back into his bag, starting to extract various shower utensils which he had carelessly stuffed into his bag the day he had left home, not really knowing whether he would need them. He inwardly congratulated himself on having been thoughtful enough to bring them just in case .

"Eh? Aren't you gonna call her back?" Seifer inquired from somewhere behind Squall, his voice still sounding sleepy, almost adorably so.

"She's at work."

"Are you taking a shower now?" Seifer asked, his voice sounding just the teeniest bit suggestive.

The brunette turned around, noticing that Seifer had taken off the shirt with the karate chick on it during the night, since he was currently wearing a tight, black muscle shirt that was clinging to him like a second skin. Squall let his eyes briefly travel up Seifer's elegant, yet very powerful, muscular and nicely tanned arms for a second until his eyes snapped into focus on the other man's face once more. "Indeed. Leave."

The blonde feigned hurt. "You're throwing_ me_ out? How terribly, _terribly_ rude of you. I'm hurt, Squall."

Squall mumbled something under his breath, yanking a towel out of the bag with a bit too much force than would have been absolutely necessary.

"Don't scream like that, you're making me deaf," Seifer muttered sarcastically.

Squall made an annoyed sound. "I said you weren't supposed to sleep here in the first place."

A big grin played around Seifer's lips. "Yeah, but it was cozy, wasn't it?"

"Whatever," was Squall's cool answer. He stood in the middle of the room, towel, shower and shampoo bottles loosely collected in his arms, looking at the other man expectantly, who just answered the look with a point-blank stare. Squall dramatically rolled his eyes. "I am _showering_, Seifer," he started patiently. "Doesn't that ring a bell..?"

It looked like Seifer wanted to make a snappy comeback, but stopped himself at the last moment. Squall watched as Seifer's cocky smirk vanished from his lips, instead letting a soft expression takie possession of his angular, handsome features. "All right, Squall, I'll go. I'll head down and ask the portier when the trains to Balamb are leaving, okay? Is that all right with you?"

Squall looked at the softly smiling man, a gentleness and genuine sympathy in his demeanour and voice that it revealed a completely new layer of what was the other man's persona, stirring something in Squall as he watched the other man lounging on his bed, his soft gaze trained on Squall, his flawless, bare arms loosely crossed over his stomach.

"Damn," Seifer muttered sarcastically. "Please don't pass out over all this enthusiasm."

"Why are you so nice to me?" Squall asked quietly. It was a mirror of what he'd said when they'd first met, back in that alley, back out with the soft snow, the sharp cold. Back then when they truly hadn't known each other, back when that small spark of weird comfortableness that was now flaring inside the brunette hadn't yet been ignited. Yeah, back then.

Seifer's gentleness wavered and his cocky smirk appeared once more. "So I can finally fuck you, what did you think? I've been waiting to do that, you see."

Squall made a displeased noise, but noticed that this time, it had been more of an automatic reaction. He hadn't.. really felt any discomfort, any shame, any disgust towards the other man.

"Hey, don't be like that," Seifer said softly. "I didn't mean it. Not fully," he winked, got up, stretched his sore muscles and yawned open-mouthed. He straightened his clothes, the muscle shirt and the pants he was still wearing from the day before and quietly left a Squall behind who was finally seriously thinking about why he _shouldn't_ just give in to the man when he so obviously wasn't disgusted by the idea, wouldn't see the other man again anyways, felt such a distant, but definite attraction to him. He couldn't yet exactly place his finger on what exactly it was that had sparked the attraction – after all, it had not been an instant one – but Squall was aware of the fact that it was there, and it was time for Squall to admit that while the other man didn't yet know him fully, most likely never would, there was something about him that made the brunette at ease, something foreign, something strange, something _exciting _that allowed the stoic brunette to be less anal to him than he would be to any other person.

_Whisper in a stranger's ear doesn't make things real?_

Squall frowned and let himself fall into the sheets of the bed, face first. The pillowes, blankets, even the mattress smelled of _him_. That spicy, intriguing scent. He wished he had a shower gel that smelled just like that. Speaking of...

Sighing, the brunette got up, undressed and quickly got under the shower, scrubbing his limbs and chest, coating it with his lemon-scented shower gel. He didn't think of anything in particular as he was massaging the sleep out of his still heavy limbs. Squall had a boner, like he always had under the shower, like he knew most guys had when the warm water rained down onto them and trailed down their bodies, but he paid it no attention. He grabbed the shower handle and changed the hot water to cold water, and his whole body immediately stood attentive as the sudden coolness slithered down his back, as the coldness delicately trespassed that line to uncomfortableness as his nipples hardened and his mind jumped to sharp focus..

He spent quite a bit of time like this until he stepped out of the shower, dried himself off and casually dressed himself in yesterday's leather pants and and a grey t-shirt, carelessly stuffing the still wet towel along with the bottle of shower gel into his travelling bag, at the same time feeling around it to produce a bottle of coke that he had thrown into the bag when he'd bought it at the Balamb train station. Well, he had never been the neat type. He was currently trying to convince his mother that a healthy dose of untidyness and chaos was in fact healthy and much more natural than her own neat freakness. Squall couldn't understand why some people were so obsessed with having everything in perfect array when life itself, everything that nature had intented, in fact was very much _not_ in array. Raine frequently accused him of trying to use philosophy as a futile vindication for his laziness. Squall thought she just might be right, though he would rather bite his thumb off than admit that to his mother.

Just as Squall had unscrewed the bottle and was about to take a sip, his eyes were drawn to a blackness amidst the whiteness of his bedsheets. He curiously walked over and picked it up, seeing that it was Seifer's pullover, the one with the karate chicken on it that Squall had instantly liked the moment he had laid eyes on it the day before, in that lockpicked room next to the Arc. Thoughtfully sipping on his coke, Squall decided to bring Seifer his shirt, since the blonde hadn't mentioned when he would come back to Squall's room to tell him when his train would leave. Checking his watch, he noticed that he'd spent a significant amount of time under the shower, so he thought it quite likely that Seifer had already returned to his room. Even if he hadn't, he would just leave the shirt hanging at the doorknob. Having something around that didn't belong to him had always been something that Squall had disliked greatly. He hated the feeling of other people's possessions around him, things that carried their scent, their memories, that were so utterly theirs... even if he was getting increasingly comfortable with anything belonging to Seifer around him, the thought that he might end up forgetting to return the shirt to Seifer, then going home with the cute shirt scared Squall. He knew he wouldn't be able to throw the cute thing away, which in turn meant a connection to Seifer, however minor it might be.

Casually carrying the shirt and the coke, Squall stepped out of the room, remembering that Seifer had told him sometime duringre-runs last afternoon that his room number was 103. He soon found said room and knocked purposefully.

"Who.. who's that?" Seifer asked from inside, sounding startled, like Squall had interrupted something. Something evil creeped up inside Squall as the possibility of paying the blonde fucker back for what he had done to him last morning when he had been taking a bath came to mind. He would've grinned an evil smile if Squall had been capable of smiling.

"It's me," Squall answered, sleazily.

Silence. "Squall...?" Seifer asked. His voice sounded very unsure and a bit... scared? Squll frowned deeply, feeling the malice seeping out of his body as he silently wondered about the other man's curious reaction.

"Who else?" he asked testily.

"Oh, sure. Of course. Hang on a sec. I'm under the shower."

Squall relaxed, pushed all suspicious thoughts out of his head and took a sip of the bottle while he was waiting for the other man to open the door for him, figuring he would take a while to dry off and put on some clothes, and just as he was gulping down large sips of his beverage the door suddenly flew open and an almost-naked Seifer stood grinning in front of him. Squall choked.

A whole load of coke landed right onto Seifer's towel, who yelped in surprise and took a couple of steps backwards, looking down disgustetly at the once white towel which was now messily sprayed with dark brown liquid.

"What the _fuck,_ Squall? What is this, coke?"

Squall blushed furiously, but kept staring at Seifer's exposed chest. He had been caught totally off guard by Seifer opening the door like that. Sure, Squall had opened the door in a towel and a shirt the other day as well, but there had been the slight difference that the brunette had been wearing a shirt at all, and his towel had also been knee-length. Seifer's looked more like a loincloth than anything else, and he was chest was naked, so very naked, and wet too, to finish the effect. Squall could see hundreds of little pearly water drops trailing down his chest, the wetness making his broad chest look even more tanned than it already was, giving it a honey coloured hue that cooperated nicely with the glossy water pearls. His nipples were hard, his stomach hard and defined, and Squall saw just how much wider he was around the waist and hips than he was, how almost girlish his waist looked in comparison to Seifer's, how the blonde's body spoke of so many years of toning and training, whereas his was just the average, skinny body of a teenage boy.

"Done staring yet?" Seifer snorted. "And, you tell me you're not gay?"

Squall blinked and quickly covered his startled expression with his typical indifferent mask. "You startled me."

"No shit. I kinda figured that out already," Seifer said, rolling his eyes. "So, what is it?"

Squall, trying hard not to look at Seifer's wet, naked chest, concentrated on the blonde's face, which was already gleaming with mischief and barely hidden amusement. There was a soft smirk on the blonde's lips. As usual.

"Can't you put something on first?" Squall aked, realizing that it had come out a bit more splenetic than he'd intented.

Now it was Seifer's turn to raise an eyebrow. "No. Why should I?"

Squall made a frustrating noise. "It's.. _irritating_."

The blonde whistled. "Irritating, huh? How very, _very _interesting."

The brunette snorted, annoyed, deciding to just give the other man his shirt and get back to his room as fast as he could. He wordlessly shoved the shirt into the other man's arms, wincing slightly as Seifer's warm, wet arms brushed against his hands. He then quickly turned around to leave, but soon felt Seifer's stopping hand on his shoulder, like he'd dreaded he would. The hand was warm and wet, even through the material of the brunette's thin grey t-shirt.

"Don't you want to know when your trains are leaving?" Seifer whispered into Squall's ear, causing the brunette to go rigid at the sudden invasion of his private space. Squall could feel the other man's body behind him, knew that he was close, way too close, even though they were not physically touching. Way, way too close.

"I can look it up myself," Squall said, trying to yank himself free from Seifer's hand, which was grabbing his shoulder quite firlmy, not seeming like it carried any notion to let go anytime soon.

"Don't be bitchy," Seifer breathed into the other man's ear. "You know what? Fine, I'll get dressed. Despite what you might think, I'm actually not _that_ much of an exhibitionist." He let go off Squall's shoulder and the smaller man sighed in relief as the vice-like hand was mercifully removed from his aching shoulder. "I didn't expect you to come here so soon. I just wanted to return to your room in half an hour or so, but seeing as how you've come here, we might as well chat here," Seifer added calmly. Squall felt his presence retreat into the room, but leaving the door ajar. His way to invite the brunette in.

Squall turned around hesitantly as he heard the rustling of clothes, watching the blonde get dressed in a starking wine red, tight, sleeveless shirt, then disappearing into a part of the room that Squall couldn't see due to the fact that the fact was only partially opened. The blonde re-emerged about 30 seconds later dressed in casual blue pants and looked at Squall expectantly, who hadn't moved an inch during the time Seifer had been getting dressed.

"Relieved?" Seifer asked smugly.

Squall narrowed his eyebrows and Seifer just laughed good-naturedly and told Squall to come in. Despite the fact that Squall felt the urge to spill what little he had left in his bottle of coke right into that oh-so-smugly grinning face, he couldn't deny that a small part of him was quite curious to see what Seifer's room looked like from the inside – looked like, smelled like... felt like. He hesitantly stepped in and slowly scanned the room. He was immediately delighted to see that it was slightly messy, but, oddly.. orderly so. It wasn't like everything was just laying around, like everything was in complete chaos, it was more that things were around to give the room a _soul_. It wasn't like most sterile hotel rooms that looked like nobody ever lived in them and it also didn't look like his living room back in Balamb that Raine kept in so fanatic order that she had long derived it of any personal feel it had ever had. Things were scattered around Seifer's room, a bottle there, some flowers here, magazines and zippos there, a gaming console of some sort with a couple of game cases next to it on the floor. It looked very ... homely. It felt very charming... very _Seifer._

"You like my room, huh?" Seifer asked.

Squall mumbled something before he crossed his arms and looked at the blonde expectantly.

Seifer reciprocated the stare.

"..What?"

"So... when?" Squall asked.

"The DCL 302 leaves every hour. Shouldn't be a problem, really. Last one's at 10 PM."

"DCL 302..?" Squall frowned. "That is a train?"

"No – it's a sandwich," Seifer answered, shocked.

Squall made an annoyed, exasperated sound. "Trains have _names_ in Deling?"

"Dude, people from Deling City give their _cocks_ names – why shouldn't they name their fucking trains?"

Squall started to say somthing, but hesitated, running his tongue over his pillowy lips.

The blonde smirked widely. "You want to know what my cock's name is, right?"

Squall snorted like it was the most ridiculous thing he'd ever had the misfortune to hear. "Like _I _care."

"Well, you _should_ care, you know," Seifer said and winked and then broke out into laughter as Squall made an annoyed noise.

Squall didn't move a muscle and just continued to stare at Seifer point-blankedly, ignoring the small spark of interest - or at least wonder, that much he had identified without a doubt – he had felt flaring the second Seifer had talked about the name-giving habits of Deling City. He had never been into perverted stuff before, had always found it incredibly dull and brainless to talk or joke about sexuality the way teenagers his age were so fond of doing and thus he was confused by not being too disgusted whenever this blonde guy made a sexual joke. It's not like he ever found _any _joke really funny, be it on sex or on the philosophical tendency of middle-aged Centra, but the mere presence of Seifer's jokes oddly didn't disturb him as much.

_Maybe you should finally come to terms with the idea that you might simply not hate him as much as the others?_

Squall bit down on his tongue, but looked up when he felt Seifer's intent gaze on his body.

"..What?" Squall asked, feeling irritated by the alien stare Seifer was giving him. It wasn't like he wasn't used to being stared at by Seifer – he very much was, gazes with fucking sexual meanings and all other things he had loved to despise all those years to top it all of – but the current gaze was a bit different, less focused, more serious. Not being able to praise himself as an expert on humans Squall shifted uneasily under the gaze that lacked all the sexual innuendo, wits and charms of the usual hunky blonde's self, though it also lacked the painful glittering of sorrow that Squall had spotted the day before. Squall vaguely wondered if this gaze meant Seifer was lost in thought.

"What..?" Squall asked again, a bit harsher than he'd intented to.

It took Seifer a few moments to find back, but when his usual self returned from whatever foreign lands it had travelled, the glittering mischief returned to his sparkling green eyes and he snapped his eyes into sharp focus on Squall's face. "I was just wondering what we could do today until you leave at 10 PM."

Squall frowned. "Who said I was taking the last train?"

Seifer just shrugged, and flashed him another grin. "Aren't you?"

The brunette shrugged.

"See."

"Don't flatter yourself. I just like Deling," Squall mumbled.

"Oh, really?" Seifer teased. "Judging by these stares you're giving me lately it isn't _only_ Deling you like."

The brunette felt another hot wave of shame wash through him, his cheeks burning furiously. "I don't know what you're talking about," he said with what he hoped was non-chalance.

"Come on, you can admit you're only staying to find out what I named my dick," Seifer teased, winking.

Had Squall been drinking anything then, he would've choked on his beverage without a question.

The blonde chuckled throatily, but quickly regained his composure. "You've seen a lot of Deling already. How about we rent a car and I show you some of the nature surrounding Deling? Legend has it there's a Lost King's Tomb nearby" he said, obviously quite amused by his own tale. "Also sightings of some curious birds as well as snow-covered mountains that I'm sure you don't see in humid Balamb. Not as impressive as Trabia of course, but Galbadia does have four distinct seasons. I hear you Balambians were all born on surfboards or something."

That certainly had some truth to it, though Squall, of course, had never surfed in his life. Nor done any of the other 'trendy' things, which included snagging your older brother's/father's porno magazines, surfing, skating and listening to sappy, heartbroken teen girls showing their not so heartbroken-looking bellybuttons singing about lost love, world piece and similar horseapples. Stuff like that.

"So, what about that trip...?" Seifer cut through the brunette's thought, causing the smaller man to blink.

"Huh? Oh. Yeah. Yeah, all right."

"Great!" Seifer exclaimed, breaking into a radiant smile that didn't leave his face for what might've been a split second but might just as well have been several minutes. They silently looked into each other's eyes and Squall felt a soft tickle somewhere inside him, barely more than a fleeting thought, yet leaving a strong impression of awkwardness. Squall opened his mouth to say something, found it dry and closed his mouth again. He once again noticed how intense the other man's eyes were and how they expressed his emotions so well... clear blue eyes were always thought of as the the kind you couldn't hide any emotions in, the kind you could read as easily as children's books and functioned as a perfect mirror to the owner's soul, but Squall had come to the startling conclusion that green eyes like Seifer's.. and only like Seifer's.. had to be the most intense, most brilliant kind. Or, screw that. Perhaps it wasn't about the colour at all, maybe Seifer was just exceptionally.. soulful.

"Squall, I've come to a fascinating conclusion. If some good fairy walked up to me and said I could either have a lifelong supply of free beer as well as an endless array of _Naughty Boys _porn mags_ or _know all and every one of Squall's thoughts, man, it'd be a tough decision."

Squall looked up, startled.

"Well," Seifer mused aloud, putting a finger to his cheek in mock-thoughtfulness. "I guess I'd choose your thoughts after all. I mean, judging by those pervy glares, they're probably a _more than _acceptable substitution for _Naughty Boys _porn mags, huh?"

The brunette bit down on his lip. "Jerk," he spat.

Seifer chuckled. "My, my; denial's tough, huh? But I remember when I was in denial about this whole, gasp, _homosexual _thing, I wasn't nearly as bitchy. You don't happen to be a _woman_, are you?" He looked at Squall expectantly, who didn't dignify this comment with an answer. Seifer chuckled lowly. "Oh, yeah. I remember. You _definitely_ aren't a woman."

Seifer's amusement was so evident in every little intonation of his words and the whole way he carried himself, the way his eyes were dancing merrily and the way his smirk was plastered on his lips that Squall noticed he had lost all connection to Seifer's other side, the side he had shown to Squall on rare occassions. The thoughtful one, the almost errily intelligent, to-the-point one, the side that had dropped all the slightly childish behaviour and revealed a serious adult underneath. The adult hiding in the layer just underneath the joking, smirking, cocky shell.

"Well, Squally, go and call your mom now – even if she's still working, leave her a message or something. Get ready, we should leave soon," Seifer said, still smirking. "Come back to my room when you're done phoning, we can go rent a car then. Well, I guess since it's morning and we both haven't eaten in a while we should go and grab some food first. Oh yeah, you might also want to go and pack now, I think this hotel expects leaving visitors to check out before noon."

Squall thought a couple of seconds, then nodded and turned to leave. Just as Squall was about to close the door behind him, Seifer spoke up again: "And by the way, I named it Torpedo."

The brunette rolled his eyes and was followed by Seifer's laughter as he quickly shut the door.

---

It stopped snowing that afternoon and the sun found its way through the thick Galbadian clouds, bathing Deling and its surrounding in a mild light lacking the obstrusive brightness of humid Balamb days. It was in no way warm, especially not to Squall, but the air had lost its biting, cruel cold, and it was pretty comfortable walking around that day. Squall, who had previously seen Galbadia as a land of ice and snow, his impression shaped by the past two days, could now vividly imagine the hot temperatures this area had to reach in summertime.

"That seems like a good spot to picnic," Seifer said from the driver's seat, throwing Squall a casual glance.

Squall whipped his head around to look at Seifer like he'd just suggested cutting each other's crown jewels off. "Picnicing?" he asked. "There's _snow_."

Seifer laughed good-naturedly and threw another glance at his passenger. "It's pretty warm today and the sun has already melted _some_ of the snow. Over there is a snowless spot, see?" He pointed to a little green isle surrounded by half-melted snow. "I know it snowed quite a bit yesterday and especially the day before, but the sun has been quite strong today. North Galbadia is like that sometimes. And, by the way, do you really want to mess up that rented car by eating in here?"

"I told you we should just have gone to a breakfast place," Squall mumbled under his breath, more to himself than to the blonde. "Fine, but as soon as I freeze my ass off, I'm leaving," the brunette added, now louder, loosening his sky blue scarf that was way too hot around his throat. The car Seifer had picked a couple of hours ago was quite big and comfortable (Squall had asked, quite irritatedly, how the heck they needed such a big car for just the two of them at which Seifer had just winked suggestively. Squall had then wanted to castrate the blonde with a rocket launcher, but had found that they sadly didn't offer any at said car rental store) and it also had a neat sound system and excellent heating. It looked like that big mamma-jamma of a car had been quite pricey to rent, but Seifer had refused the brunette's offer to pay half of the price. Since Squall wasn't really comfortable with other people throwing presents at him but didn't really lose any sleep over it either, Squall had let Seifer and his choice in cars be, but had compromised that he would be the one to pick the food.

"Don't be such a pussy," Seifer teased. "You know as well as I do that it's not that cold today. And even if you get that cold, I _do_ have some ideas how to change that rather.. enjoyably, y'know."

"Thanks, but no, thanks," Squall spat in reply.

"You're sounding less convincing by the hour."

"Cool. We going now or what?"

"Oh, so we _are _picnicing after all?"

Squall rested his fingertips against his forehead as if in great pain. "... just shut up, will you?"

"As you wish," Seifer muttered sarcastically, though he seemed a teeny bit frustrated this time. "It's unbelievable, but I'm starting to think you're about as much of a dick as I am."

Squall stayed silent and just looked at Seifer out of bored eyes. The blonde killed the enginge and unfastened his seat belt but didn't break the eye contact with the other man throughout this entire procedure. Seifer, who had thrown some old, a bit tattered brown jacket over the stunningly red shirt he had dressed himself in that morning, had a healthy red tint to his cheek and slightly tousled hair, as well as a more serious expression on his face that emphasized his handsome, very Aryan features. Squall again felt slightly insecure with his girlier features and skinnier body, a feeling quite new to the very much un-vain youth, who had never bothered to compare himself to others and had never bothered with his own appearance much, having lost himself in his own world where nothing but his own thoughts mattered, giving him more comfort than real friends had ever been able to. The only other human being he had ever allowed entrance into his own world had been the one who had so willingly left it few years later, the one who perhaps hadn't even realized what a priviledge had been bestowed upon her. Squall felt a brief shot of pain that soon subsided.

"What's your secret, Squall?"

Seifer's question came so totally out of the blue that it caught Squall off-guard. He whipped his head around to meet Seifer's eyes, his eyebrows laced together in a questioning frown.

"What?" Squall asked frostily, shivering slightly at Seifer's calm, serious face that showed no sign of jest or sarcasm.

"I asked what your secret was, Squall."

Squall looked at him, non-plussed. "What do you mean?"

"You're more than meets the eye," Seifer told him quietly. "Like I am..."

Squall frowned. "Like you are?"

Seifer remained serious for a while and that look that Squall had interpreted as thoughtful before resurfaced on his handsome face. Drumming his slender fingers with the silver ring on his middle finger rhythmically against the steering wheel, it took him a couple of moments to snap out of his musings and when he did, the atmosphere in the car filled with so much awareness of each other's presence that Squall shifted uncomfortably in his seat.

"Um, I'm getting the blanket and stuff," Seifer said at least, his voice sounding unusually crackly. "Go and get the food out of the boot, m'kay?"

Squall frowned. ".. boot?"

"Or _rear trunk_ for you Balambians," Seifer added sulkily.

"Oh," Squall said, blinking. Oh right, there wasn't only a difference in accent, but also in vocabulary. He opened his mouth to say something but quickly shut it again as he saw Seifer turning around on his seat, leaning forwards to fish for the blanket he must had stored somewhere on the backseat. Shrugging, Squall quickly opened the door, got out and got a medium-sized plastic bag out of the trunk which he had filled with relatively cheap supermarket food this noon after having checked out and paid at the hotel. Hey, if Seifer wanted to waste his money on renting an uber-awesome car, then that was his business; Squall saw no point in getting exquisite cusine when supermarket food could taste just as good, especially if you bought all the good stuff. Squall noticed distantly that it really wasn't all that cold. Though it was definitely warmer in the car than it was outside (well, duh) it was in no way uncomfortably cold that day, especially since Squall had dressed warm enough for the worst case scenario that morning. He could see himself staying outside for a while without freezing his balls off, which made for quite the promising outlook.

From his position in front of the so-called 'boot', he watched Seifer spreading a thick, bright red blanket on the grassy spot. Lazily, the brunette strolled over to the blanket and sat down unceremoniously, barely noticing the blonde sitting down opposite of him and staring curiously at the plastic bag Squall was still clutching in his hand. Oh, right. Seifer didn't know what Squall had bought for them. The brunette felt faint amusement crawling inside him as he shoved the bag into Seifer's arms quite rudely, a mischievous glint in his eyes, calmly watching Seifer as Seifer quickly opened the bag with a huge grin drawn across his face, which soon fell when he saw himself confronted by the bag's content.

"What the _fuck_, Squall?" Seifer exclaimed.

"What?" the brunette cooed innocently. "You don't like it?"

Seifer looked up at Squall. "You want to fucking kill me, kid? You want me to pass out from a sugar high? What the _fuck,_ man?" Seifer shoved the bag back at Squall, his eyes spilling poison.

Squall felt wonderful, sweet amusement blossoming inside him. "What? You don't like candy?"

Seifer looked just about ready to launch at Squall and tear at his throat. "Chocolate and candy for _breakfast,_ Squall? Newsflash; we're not in a stupid chick's flick. Where's my bread, instant coffee and strawberry jam?"

"I like chocolate," Squall stated matter-of-factly.

"Now I _definitely_ know you're a bigger dick than me," Seifer muttered, a very annoyed look on his face.

Though Squall was enjoying Seifer's displeasure, he distinctly felt uneasy at Seifer's annoyance and apparent disappointment. For a long while, neither man said anything and with the time that passed, Squall's discomfort at Seifer's annoyance grew until it had suffocated the amusement that had flared inside him minutes before. He distantly wished he had picked something decent that day instead of buying his preferred breakfast which he had more than suspected Seifer wouldn't like. The blonde stoically watched some birds sailing by and time crawled by with what seemed like a snail's-with-a-broken-leg speed.

"Um.. so would you like a Zungo chocolate bar? A strawberry-flavoured gummi snake?" He looked at Seifer blankly. "A chocolate-covered-"

"Go fuck yourself, will you?" Seifer interrupted.

Squall was genuinely surprised. "Why?"

"I don't eat stuff like that," Seifer said harshly.

Squall frowned. "Never?"

"No," Seifer answered, taking a deep breath, then looking at Squall casually, though there was still a thoughtfullness lingering in there somewhere that caused Squall to pay the blonde man his full attention. "I used to be fat," Seifer said quietly.

"Really?" Squall asked, instantly remembering Seifer's body which his eyes had feasted on just a couple of hours earlier, how tight it had been, how there had been no excess skin like he knew people who lost weight very quickly had to fight against. Seifer's body looked like he had spent training it since a very, very young age, perhaps forever, like he'd always been an avid sportsman.

"Yeah, really," Seifer snorted. "I'm short of thyroxine, which means my metabolism is slower than most people's. I gain weight easily and when I was a young teenager, I went through a heavy depression phase in which I just ate everything I could get my hands on. As a result, I got really fat and stayed that way until..." he trailed off. "Until two years ago," he added briskly, turning away to look at the clear, white clouds slowly flying by above them, making it very clear that this was all he intended to say about the matter.

"I see," Squall said quietly. A long pause followed. "Chocolate is all I eat."

"No wonder you never gained any muscle mass from that junk," Seifer muttered darkly.

"Thank you," Squall answered icily.

"But at least you can get away with it," Seifer said casually. "I always wanted a nicely thin, lean body like yours, free of fat and bulky muscles. The leanness of youth."

Squall made a surprised face at Seifer, one he must have shown so vividly that Seifer broke out into loud laughter. The brunette made a dismayed face at the laughing blonde, not sure whether the compliment he'd just received have been a joke or whether the muscular guy had really meant what he'd said about Squall's skinny teeange body, a body which the brunette had never thought of as being desirable, especially not compared to the fit, ripped physique of Seifer's that showed striking resemblance to the male models Ellione had plastered her now so girly room with. Squall mused that his sister would probably go crazy over a guy like Seifer with his dangerous bad-boy air and his good looks.

"I actually meant what I said," Seifer chuckled. "I do think you have a nice body."

Squall felt oddly honoured but didn't return the compliment. Instead, he silently started to eat a chocolate bar filled with coconut, feeling the familiar, sweet taste of it explode on his tongue, rolling it on his taste buds before he swallowed. It was true that Squall barely ate anything other than chocolate, mainly because he detested the taste of anything that wasn't either really sweet or really sour, particularily everything that was bitter or had little taste or contained meat. The brunette was a strict vegetarian, but not because he loved animals or wanted to make a political statement. He actually didn't give a flying about animal rights (he didn't care for any animals oher than felines anyways) and was politically-inept and widely desinterested. He just happened to dislike the taste of meat, which was why he had stopped eating any at an early age. People often congratulated him on being so strict with his diet and how they too thought that eating fellow creatures was strong, at which Squall only stared at them blankly. He never bothered to explain he wasn't exactly on an ethical crusade, though.

"I'm so hungry," Seifer moaned. "You're such a little bitch, Squall. Where am I supposed to get any food _here_?"

"I might have some other stuff in one of my bags.." Squall said hesitatingly. He hadn't dared mentioning it before because he didn't want to disappoint the blonde in case he was mistaken. "Some fruit and stuff..."

Seifer made a face so surprised it was eerily funny. "_What?"_ he spat. "Why didn't you say this sooner?"

Squall just stared at him.

"All right, all right, I'm sorry," Seifer raised his hands defensively. "Can you get me some, please?"

Squall nodded, got up and lazily walked towards the rear trunk, fishing his bag out, rummaging through it in the search of an apple or maybe some sort of bread that his mother might've packed him the other day. Since Squall didn't particularily like neither apples nor bread, he never packed any himself, but his mother insisted on him eating some, so she packed him an apple or a banana rather frequently. It was good she didn't know he never even bothered to give these questionable traits to people who appreciated them more and instead just threw them into a trash bin on his way to school. She should have become a nutritionist the way she got her kicks out of lecturing her son on what was healthy for him and what was not.

Feeling the cool surface of a small plastic bag inside his travelling bag, Squall's shoulder relaxed and he let out a content sigh. Pulling it out, he narrowed his eyes to check for its content and couldn't keep a relieved sigh from erupting when he saw that it contained three red, ripe looking apples, apples that he was sure Seifer would appreciate, apples nice and firm and, trusting Raine, of second-to-none quality. Pushing the irksome question that was lingering in his mind out of his head, which was curiously demanding just why exactly he was so glad he could make the other man happy, he casually raised his head – and froze dead in his motions.

Squall's eyes widened and he dropped the apples. His mouth opened as though to say something, to scream, but no sound came out and he took in the winged monster that had suddenly emerged, looking at the brunette boy with beady eyes. Squall was willing to bet his right hand that he had seen nothing but maliciousness in the bird's mean little eyes.

With a cry, the Thrust Avis attacked.

**To be continued**

**(please review)**


	4. now

IMPORTANT Author's Notes: This is the CENSORED version of Chapter 4! For the real, the uncensored version, please go to linking doesn't seem to work in actual chapters, so please go to my profile for the URL! (alternatively, go to adultfanfiction yourself and look for the penname Cosina Veloce (with underslash) manually, if linking in a profile doesn't work EITHER OO)

This chapter was intented to be read WITH the graphic sex scene it contains. I dislike censorship, so I advise you to go read the real version, unless you dislike reading sex, in which case you're better off reading the mild version.

Thanks a million for reviewing and please enjoy the conclusion of _Melancholy Requiem_. (until the epilogue, that is..)

_Melancholy Requiem_

_by Cosina Veloce_

_Chapter 4: ... now_

Squall barely had time to let the situation really sink in before he heard the screeching sound of the bird monster attacking, and in a split of a second, Squall standing totally beside himself, he instinctively did a dodge roll, feeling the swish of the attacking bird missing him by a mere foot, the long, yellow beak of the monster missing his arm by even less than that. The bird monster yelled in frustration, and it turned his beady little eyes to fully look at Squall, opening its throat for another one of its unnerving, screeching yells. The monster was purple, save for some yellow pattering and eerily glowing, yellow eyes that were leering at Squall with nothing short of cruelty.

Squall had never seen a monster before.

Some of them lived in Balamb Plains, sure enough. Sometimes he had heard strange sounds coming from bushes, sure; but never, ever had he come face to face with a violent monster, with its claws glinting in the afternoon sun and its eyes spilling blood and murder at the young man. Having acted on mere instinct, Squall was horrified to see the monster. His cool exterior had shattered. Squall could almost visualize the cold sheet of ice covering his body, having shattered into million glittering pieces as silent, cold fear gripped him. Actual real, penetrating, dominating _fear._

Squall could taste his heartbeat at the back of his throat as he saw, in just the most fleeting of moments, the monster making attempts to go for another tackle, and Squall, acting on mere instinct and adrenaline – pure, real adrenaline pumping through his veins like hot, purifying acid – jumped forward, hearing the bird's annoyed whimper as it has missed its prey yet again and Squall landed hard on the floor, hitting his head, his face momentarily buried in snow. Millions of tiny needles pinched into his face, the fall dazing his mind. It felt like his brain cells were dissolving into water as the pain, the shock and the adrenaline all became too much to bear, and he clumsily stumbled on his feet as fast as he could to turn to the monster, which was meeting his gaze openly. He flinched, his feet suddenly frozen to the spot.

For a horrible moment, maybe a split second, maybe a whole second, maybe several minutes, the Thrust Avis and Squall stared at each other. Squall felt the hot blood pumping inside him and then the moment he had feared came; the bird's back buckled, it opened its mouth into another horrible war scream, commenced flying at Squall -

-and Squall, stupidly rooted to his spot, saw a mass of white or beige entangling with the purple and yellow of the Thrust Avis, and he heard an awful blop sound and the bird's frantic scream of pain. A man's panting was mixed into it, and more yells from the fighting bird, and Squall, whose visions had finally cleared itself, saw Seifer pointing a long blade at the bird, his stance light-footed, his face a grimace of hate. Shifting his gaze to the monster, Squall saw that it was bleeding frantically, having difficulty to stay in the air as it made small tortured noises. Seifer advanced to, as Squall assumed, take of a wing completely, but the bird, still so quick though so very injured, dodged the hit and screeched loudly, though differently than it had before. Seifer grumbled something under his breath and frantically looked around as though waiting for something and really – Squall was amazed to see a little bolt of electricity, seemingly coming out of nowhere, lunging directly at the blonde fighter, who, having spotted it early enough, angrily dodged it with two sidesteps.

The monster retreated slightly, leaving some space between itself and the human fighter and Squall held his breath, still feeling the adrenaline run through him, but it suddenly felt different. Squall couldn't quite put his finger on it, but something.. something about this horrifying, this gruelling, this bloody and scary situation was undeniably... pulling him towards itself. Biting down on his lower lip until Squall could taste blood, he frantically looked around for something he could use to help Seifer, his eyes falling onto a wooden stick descarted in his vicinity and without thinking it over, he grabbed it and ran towards the monster, not knowing what the heck he was doing, not knowing anything at that moment, nothing but how it just felt so right. How he felt so _alive._

"Wait... _don't!_" he heard Seifer scream behind him, but it didn't matter to Squall that instant. Nothing mattered.

The bird, which had noticed Squall running towards it, flexed his beady gaze on Squall, trying to look intimating, but Squall crossed the distance between them sooner than the monster might've anticipated. With a grim, but utterly satisfied sigh, Squall aimed and, with a sound that reverbrated through his skull, his body, his whole being, the hit actually landed against the bird's skull. It howled in pain and swirled, fighting to keep itself in the air, and Squall, in a frenzy, wanted to hit again, wanted to kill the pathetic little thing, but he felt a strong, purposeful hand on his arm, holding him back. Looking around to see who dared to intrude, he looked into the green depths of Seifer's eyes, who was holding him back firmly, his blade – his _gunblade_, Squall remembered – clasped tightly between his hand. He shoved Squall aside powerfully and the brunette who was without a doubt the physically smaller of the two, stumbled a couple of feet backwards, clutching tightly to the piece of wood as though it was a safety rope.

He immediately wanted to attack the monster again, but Seifer positioned himself so that Squall was blocked from the bird's sight, and he heard the sound he'd heard again, just know he could identify it – it was sound of Seifer's gunblade cutting into the flesh of the Thrust Avis. Beckoning closer to the battle, Squall suddenly stopped when he felt wetness slithering down his face, his neck, and he looked up, seeing thick raindrops fall down onto his head. Calmly, Squall watched the darkening sky, watched the rain slowly falling, the scenery accompanied by the battle noises both Seifer and the bird were making. Shifting his gaze back to the battle, the brunette lavished into the adrenaline flaring up again, and he decided to sprint to the battle again. As though possessed, he ran to Seifer's side, stick high in the air, ready to beat the living hell out of that monster which had so daringly interrupted their peaceful picnic. Seifer just glared at the brunette with a look that suggested murder and before Squall had time to react he saw how with one final, hard blow, Seifer's gunblade swished down and expertly decapitated the bird.

Its body fell to the floor with a soft thumb, muffled by the snow. Crimson blood spilled into the snow, giving it a pinkish colour. The rain which had started to pour down on the earth had already started to wash the snow away, to let the dead monster rot and embrace it to its next stop in the circle of life. Squall stared at the dead thing.

His thoughts tripping over one another, still high on so much adrenaline that he wanted to burst with it, he jumped visibly as Seifer softly touched his arm. Facing the other man, looking into his passionate eyes, Squall did the only thing that felt right that second. He grabbed Seifer's neck and demandingly, almost violently, pulled him down into a kiss, feeling Seifer's lips, which were cool from the rain, and the hot, burning insides of his mouth, his wonderful, wet tongue. The contrast of the cool dampness of the rain, Squall's wet bangs clinging to his equally wet forehead and Seifer's busy tongue inside him could not have been more enticing, and Squall moaned lowly into Seifer's mouth, wrapping both of his arms around the taller man, pushing him tighter to his shivering body. Squall wanted more. More of Seifer's tongue. More of Seifer's body. Tightening the grip around the other man's neck, he border-line violent crushed his mouth against the other man's, pushing his tongue as far into the blonde's mouth as it would go, tasting and feeling the very insides of the other's hot, stimulating mouth. Squall then started to circle Seifer's tongue, but not softly or playfully, but with force, rubbing their tongues together hardly and purposefully. Squall felt Seifer's hands travelling down his body, squeezing his butt through his pants, and Squall quietly moaned.

Suddenly, Seifer tried to push away, but Squall didn't want to let him. He didn't want this moment to be broken like the time they had kissed on that hotel's roof, ruined like that time he had received a hand job at that lock picked room, ruined like the many times Squall had felt like kissing the other man, but had not dared to. This moment, with his system so overloaded by the emotions he had missed for so long that it seemed like a fucking eternity, was so perfect that he didn't want to let go. Muffling and struggling, Seifer finally managed to tear his mouth free from Squall's hungry, demanding one and he looked at the brunette with dark arousal evident in his eyes.

"Car?" the blonde asked quietly.

Squall merely shook his head, hungrily searching for the other man's mouth again, not caring about the rain. He would not let this moment be broken like all the others, so he searched for Seifer's lips again. The blonde seemed to have given in to Squall's demand. He reciprocated the kiss and hugged the other man tightly, pressing his lower body against Squall, letting him feel his erection. The brunette felt a hot wave of need souring through his body at the hardness and purposefulness of the blonde's body.

Tugging at each other's clothes they somehow, magically, found the blanket they had spread out on the floor again, and Seifer roughly pushed Squall down on it. The brunette complied willingly, tearing and tugging at the blonde's shirt who was now on top of him, wanting the fabric out of the way to feel the hard, defined muscle of Seifer's so very mature body. Seifer broke the kiss just long enough to dispose of his jacket, the shirt following suit, leaving his upper body naked and entirely exposed to the softly falling rain. Squall felt a slight shiver of cold go down Seifer's spine, so the brunette started to rub and massage his naked back, producing warmth for the shivering blonde. Running his hands over the blonde's defined back muscles, skin hard and smooth, he eagerly pressed his lips against the other man's again, his mouth feeling strangely empty without Seifer's purposeful tongue languidly massaging his. He loved kissing Seifer. Squall couldn't remember the last time he had really enjoyed something as thoroughly as the feeling of Seifer's velvety tongue.

Closing his eyes, Squall gave himself completely to Seifer.

---

It felt strangely good, strangely homely. Sitting there with Seifer in the back seat of their car, watching the seemingly never-ending rain trailing lazily down the windows. It felt oddly right, even though Squall still felt so very drained, so very empty. He looked at Seifer who was quietly smoking a cigarette, leaning against the car's door and staring off into space. The room was slowly filling itself with smoke.

Squall couldn't stop thinking about what had happened, feeling a slight pang of shame shoot through him whenever he thought of how he had behaved underneath Seifer as he had fucked him, how he had scratched his back, how he had moaned his name and asked for more. But his thoughts also kept trailing to what had happened before that.

"I look ridiculous in your clothes," Seifer mused.

"You don't," Squall answered softly. Squall had given the other man the only clothes that had fit his much broader frame, a wide t-shirt he had purchased some years ago and his light blue pyjama pants. Seifer looked slightly funny, but not downright ridiculous.

"The fuck I don't," Seifer muttered. Then he snickered and his intense eyes rolled to look at Squall. "But then, getting all my clothes wet was worth it, I guess."

He rolled the window down and threw the rest of the cigarette out. Silence spread out between them, Squall once more occupied with his own thoughts, thoughts that he got clearer on by the minute, thoughts that scared him and excited him at the same time.

Squall's heart contracted when he thought of it. He saw the image of the ugly monster, remembering the feelings he had felt when trying to combat it. The frenzy he had run on. At the _life_ he had felt, at how _right_ it had felt. The fighting, the thrill, the play with life and death, the sex, the sweat, the rain. How he had felt like he'd never felt before. Like another world, a world completely different from the boring one he'd led before, but a life that actually _was_ a life.

Squall had never really felt much, until the thrill had taken possession of him, until he'd seen nothing but that bird, until nothing but killing that monster had mattered. Nothing but the life pumping through his veins, breaking the ice that been speeding through his body all these years.

"What was up with you, anyways..?" Seifer asked as though he had known Squall was musing about it. He sounded guarded and hesistant. "You seemed almost.. possessed."

"I... I felt... I felt... _alive_," the brunette answered, whispering the last word. "I _felt_, Seifer."

"What did you feel, Squall?" Seifer asked softly.

Squall swallowed. "Adrenaline. A thrill."

"Remember when I asked you about whether you'd ever thought about killing yourself?"

Squall looked up and nodded.

"Only when we put our own lives at stake is when we truly feel alive."

"What does that have to do with suicide? Who are 'we'?"

"You and me," Seifer said simply. Squall waited for him to say more, but when he didn't, Squall curled himself up, resting his head between his legs.

"You do this a lot, don't you?" Squall suddenly asked.

Seifer started another cigarette, taking a lungful and blowing the smoke in the air sensually. "What do you mean?"

Squall looked up. "Killing."

Seifer flinched, definitely _flinched, _and that was when Squall knew. It was all the proof he needed.

"You've killed before, haven't you?" he asked so quietly it was barely audible. Nonetheless, he knew that Seifer had heard him.

The blonde swallowed visibly. When he spoke those next words, they were so quiet Squall almost didn't hear them. "I was in prison, Squall. For the last three years. And I don't have much time.."

The brunette said nothing for a long while. Grinding his teeth together, he pressed out: "Who was it?"

"Who? You mean, who did I kill?" Seifer asked, then laughed quietly, entirely without humour. "Rinoa."

The word just sort of lingered in the room, reverating in Squall's ears. He heard the name all over again. _Rinoa. Rinoa. Rinoa. RINOA._

Squall's head started to swim again.

"But.. you loved her."

"I didn't do it on purpose," Seifer said, conflicted emotions on his face. Sitting up, he reached out to cup Squall's hands, taking them forecfully even as the smaller man made slight attempts to withdraw them. "Do you want to know my story..? I mean, I won't tell you a novel, just a short summary of my life..?" Seifer asked quietly.

Squall, his heart in his throat, nodded.

Seifer took a deep breath, rolled his eyes upwards as though in pain, and then levelled them on Squall's face as he monotonously started to tell.

"I... I... _killed_ her accidentally when she tried to interrupt a fight between me and some bullies I'd always hated," Seifer said. "But don't think I was so innocent before that. It wasn't even my first murder. I was very skilled with my gunblade, and I'd killed people sometimes, during gang riots. I was involved with Deling's underworld. Deling City is the drug and sex capital of Gaia, we have a scene here that you probably can't even imagine. Having grown up without parents, Rinoa and those gangs was all I really had." Seifer stopped at this point to draw a shaky breath, collecting himself. "She was my everything. Sure, I'm gay and always have been. But I loved her. I never wanted to fuck her, but she was my only true friend. She didn't come from those circles. Her mother was a singer and her father in politics and quite influential. She was not only the only true friend I had, she was also the only person I really socialized with who wasn't involved with gang wars. And.. and I killed her. Accidentally, but I still killed her," Seifer had to pause at this point and Squall let him, not pressing the issue.

"Though my other murders had gone unwitnessed, Rinoa's was very different. She still had parents and a reputation, unlike the nameless bastards I had killed in the heat of the battle before her. Her father had me thrown in jail for what I did to his daughter, and I can't blame him. I deserved it. I really did." Seifer's voice was thick with emotion at this point.

"I only got three years, though, since I was underaged at the time of the crime and because witnesses could prove that it had in fact been merely an accident. The judge believed I hadn't meant to kill the only girl that meant anything to me, so I got away with only three years.. three years for taking her life, isn't this ironic? I don't think you can measure the value of a person's life by years spent in prison... " He paused. "My three years in jail were very uneventful and I'd rather just forget the awful time there. I used it to shape my body, though. After I got released a month ago, I was so happy I thought I'd explode." He paused. "That's it," he added quietly.

Squall was floored with the story. He had expected no less, really, but the way Seifer was so raw with hurt just stirred something inside Squall. "So, what are you doing now..?" he asked quietly.

"What can an ex-convict do?" Seifer asked, trying to look nonchalant, but failing. "There isn't really anything I can do, but don't pity me. I have plans."

"You had money to pay the hotel," Squall pointed out. His eyes widened at a sudden realization. "Don't tell me..?"

Seifer said nothing for a long while. "Yes, I am involved with it again. You're awfully smart, you know that, pussycat?" he smiled. "So quick at figuring things out."

Squall's thoughts were swirling.

"How.. how can you?" Squall pressed out eventually. "How? How can you do it again?" He paused. "You said you had plans? What plans?"

"I'm not really involved with the.. underworld, or however you want to call it again. The old me, the Seifer from three years ago.. he's a stranger, Squall. He's no longer me. I don't even really remember all the shit I did." Seifer said. "But.. there's this guy who still owes me money. He's promised to return it to me tonight. If he does, I get enough money to move to Esthar and start a new life. Away from where the Galbadian government can reach me, I can maybe resume school. Remember I told you, I was in Galbadia Garden briefly. Got kicked out, though. Instructors said I was unable to follow orders, or something along those lines," he laughed sceptically, but quickly became serious again."I've always thought it would be awesome to be gunblade-teacher. Maybe I can do that.. in Esthar." He smiled at Squall encouragingly. "Don't look like that! It's not that bad, really. I do have a future."

"I'm glad," Squall muttered, realizing with a slight shock that he really was. "I think you would be a great teacher..."

"Thank you," Seifer said, looking like the compliment genuinely made him happy. Then he smirked naughtily and Squall knew the old Seifer had returned, at least to some degree. "I'm a good sex teacher, too, eh? You loved it, didn't ya?"

Squall rolled his eyes, yanking his hands away from Seifer. "Trust you to break the moment," he muttered sardonically.

Seifer laughed, still not as carefree as he had before, but slowly regaining his attitude. "Man, you're a lion in bed. I'm sure I have tons of red scratches on my back."

"Cut it," Squall snarled.

_"Oh yeah, Seifer, oh yeah_," Seifer mocked.

"I said, cut it!" Squall said, hitting Seifer playfully on the arm and Seifer stopped laughing. They were silent for a while.

"Look, it's stopped raining," Seifer said. "I guess we should slowly head into the direction of the train station."

Squall checked his watch and saw that the last train would leave in approximately an hour. He wondered distantly where all the time had gone to. Had they been driving for so long? Had they sat in silence in this car for so long? Had they fucked for so long? He felt a slight pull inside him, one that indicated that the brunette didn't really want to leave. He frowned.

They had enough time to drive there, but they would have to slowly get their asses in gear, as much as Squall wanted to stay in this place. Nodding, Squall reached to open the passenger's door so he could step out and enter the front one, but Seifer stopped him with a hand on his arm.

"I really meant what I said," Seifer muttered. "I _will_ start a new life in Esthar. You don't have to worry about me. I'll be fine."

Squall looked at him. "Who said I would worry?"

Seifer just smiled, releasing Squall's arm. The brunette gave him another long look before he opened the door at last.

The drive to the train station passed quite uneventfully, but Squall's head was lost in thought all the while, flashes of memories illuminating his brain cruelly and periodically. He remembered the blood, the sex, the feelings.. he remembered it all and felt a slight pull of sadness at the fact that it was all over and that he on his way to resume his boring life, or the empty shell thereof, in Balamb Town.

"Did it hurt..?" Seifer suddenly asked into the silence. Squall knew he was asking about sex.

"At first..." the brunette answered vaguely. He sighed deeply. "But, I liked it."_ More than liked it. _

A huge grin appeared on Seifer's face and he even briefly looked at Squall before his eyes returned to the road where they belonged. "Fucking you was a kind of achievement for me. It was, after all, the reason I picked you up."

"Was it really?" Squall asked out of the blue.

"Huh?" Seifer asked, perplexed. "I told you so, no?"

"Didn't you say we were similar..?" Squall trailed off, looking at the other man intently, who was, very uncharacteristically, frowning. "Maybe that was really why you insisted on staying with me."

"There _is_ a connection between us," Seifer murmured. There was a long pause and when he finally spoke it, it was very quietly, but with feeling. "I see you as my equal."

_I see you as my equal._

Squall blinked. "Thanks...?"

Seifer laughed. "I can't believe you developed something close to humour within those three days we spent together. I'm awfully impressed with your progress, Squall. Remeber how stoic you were when I first met you? I mean, not like you're Mr. Sociable now, but you're warmed up a lot to me. I know you don't do this to everyone."

"Really?" Squall asked dryly. "How would you know?"

"I'm sure all of Balamb is afraid of you."

Squall made a displeased face. "Don't talk nonsense."

Seifer chuckled quietly to himself, and the rest of the drive passed without either of them saying much. Before Squall knew it, houses emerged on either side of the car, and the farther they drove, the houses around them gained in density until soon Squall knoew they had reached downtown Deling again. It wouldn't be long until they reached the train station. Squall felt the almost physical pull to tell the blonde to stop, but didn't. When Seifer parked, and killed the enginge, a minute could've passed since they started driving, or two hours. Squall had long since lost his feeling for the flow of time. Squall looked out of the window and saw that the train station was a mere couple of meters away. Sighing, he turned to Seifer, studying his face closely. His beautiful, deep eyes, his strong jawline, his high, Aryan nose. His funny clothing.

"Maybe you should go now," Seifer said softly.

Squall looked at him, and, following a sudden pull, heaved his body forward, pressing his lips softly against Seifer's. He nibbled on Seifer's lower lip, ran his tongue along it, then finally plunged his tongue into the other's inviting mouth. Wrapping his arms around Seifer's neck, Squall kissed him deeply, wanting to say so many things with this kiss. When they broke apart, Squall had to draw in air sharply, like the blonde had sucked his breath out of him with this crushing, soulful kiss. Looking at Seifer out of wide eyes, Squall asked: "Can't you go to the train station with me?"

Seifer looked at him. "People will stare at my clothes."

Squall cocked an eyebrow. "Do you care?"

Seifer smiled. "No."

Squall gave Seifer's arm a squeeze before he left the car, stretching his limbs. It was already dark around them, night having fallen a while ago while they had still been sitting in the car. Temperatures had dropped considerably and Squall wrapped his own arms around his body protectively. Seifer, as though it was perfectly natural, carried all of Squall's stuff as they quietly walked to the train station, not exchanging a word. When they entered the train station main hall, people looked at the two men funnily, but Squall, being more than used to funny stares, ignored them professionally. It had never mattered to him what other people thought of him and he would sure as hell not start now of all times. Seeing that his train would leave on platform 10, they slowly, quietly, proceeded to the platform, finding it rather empty. The train was already there, but wouldn't leave for another 10 minutes. Seifer nodded to one of the benches and they sat down, Seifer sighing quietly as he could let go of the rather heavy bags Squall had brought.

"You know," Seifer said quietly. "I'm kinda glad your dad dumped you."

Squall wanted to say 'me too', but couldn't bring himself to. He stared into the night, hearing the distant chatter of other people, some machine or train making metallic, oily sounds in the distance somewhere, the cool air pinching his skin. Squall looked at Seifer, until at last, a thought occured to him, causing him to reach for his bags.

"Oh my bad!" Squall said. "You still haven't eaten anything all day!"

Seifer stopped the brunette gently but firmly. "It's okay. I don't want to spend our last minutes munching away on some apple. Yeah, I'm awfully hungry, but I'll just go and eat at a restaurant once you've left. I won't go collect what's rightfully mine until later tonight."

Squall frowned. "Are you sure?"

"That I don't want your food or that I'm really going there to get my money? The answer to both is: yeah, I am. It's my money and my fucking future at stake here. I want a new life. I long for it, Squall."

Squall looked at him and Seifer reciprocated the look. Suddenly, he broke out into a rather warm smile. "Hey, pussycat, almost forgot. Do you have a piece of paper and a pen?"

"Yeah" Squall trailed off. ".. _pussycat_?"

Seifer winked suggestively. "Lion would probably fit you better. My back is _killing_ me."

A pang of shame went through Squall. "Shut up," he hissed.

Seifer laughed quietly. "So, you have that piece of paper or not?"

"What for?"

"I want to give you my e-mail address.." Seifer trailed off. "You know, we probably won't see each other again, but I thought it would be nice to keep in touch, you know, write each other once in a while.. see how the other is doing..." he breathed in sharply. "But of course, if you don't want to.."

"No, it's a good idea," Squall interrupted, looking through one of his smaller bags and silently handed Seifer a small piece of white paper and a pen. The brunette watched as Seifer scribbled down something, then turned the paper to write something on its back and handed the piece of paper with all two sites covered with neat little letters back to Squall.

Squall frowned deeply as he read the front site. "..._BigBadGunblader66gmail.gb_?"

"Yeah, what about it?"

Squall shook his head. He hadn't really expected anything else. He decided that very instant that he would write Seifer an e-mail the day after, right after school. Squall was just about to turn the paper to read what Seifer had written there when Seifer's voice firmly stopped him. "Don't."

The brunette looked up. "Why not?"

Seifer shrugged. "Please read it on the train. Not that it's anything special.. it's just... don't read it in front of me, kay?"

Squall, though curious, accepted Seifer's wish. He neatly folded the paper and slipped it into one of his jeans pockets, his eyes never leaving the other man who was giving him a very un-Seifer-like unsure smile.

"Oh," Seifer exclaimed. "Almost forgot! What am I gonna do with your clothes? I can't -"

"Keep them," Squall said simply.

"You're not serious."

"Keep them," Squall repeated.

"Whoa, honest? Well, I can't deny I'm sorta glad. Didn't really want to strip just now. Thanks a bunch, Squall."

Squall opened his mouth to say something, but was interrupted by a pleasant, female voice. His back went rigid, all thoughts about clothes quickly leaving his head.

_DCL 302 , from Deling City to Balamb Town, will leave the platform in two minutes. Passengers, please board the train. I repeat: DCL 302, from Deling City to Balamb Town, will leave the platform in two minutes. Passengers, please board the train and have a safe and pleasant journey!_

Seifer sighed deeply and got up, Squall following his movements hesitatingly. They stood facing each other for a good minute, just looking at each other, trying to soak up each other's face so they would not forget it. Squall tried to say something, but had to shut his mouth again as nothing but a hoarse whisper came out. Trying to collect himself, Seifer wrapping his arms around the smaller man and crushing him to his chest nearly knocked the wind out of Squall's lungs.

"I'm glad I met you, Squall," Seifer whispered into the other man's ear, his breath hot and arousing in the brunette's ear. "I don't love you, Squall. I've only known you for three days, but," he released the brunette to look into his eyes, "I'm on the path that leads there."

Squall didn't know what to say. Nodding at Seifer, he slowly boarded the train, turning around to look at the other man once he was inside. Seifer gave him a small smile and a thumbs-up, and something inside Squall moved when the train's doors closed and he could no longer see the blonde. Unable to move, Squall had to steady himself as the train started to move, and for once horrible second, Squall seriously contemplated pulling the emergency brakes, getting out and staying in Deling City forever. Joining Seifer in his gang riots or whatever. Anything but returning to his repetitive life that wasn't really a life. Anything but having to live like a walking corpse that hadn't yet realized it had long since left what had once been its life.

But, Squall knew he couldn't. The one heart-wrenching moment passed.

The train picked up speed and soon Deling was far, far behind him.

**to be continued**

**(please review and stay tuned for the conclusion in the epilogue)**


	5. Epilogue

The Epilogue is up at last. With this, _Melancholy Requiem_ is finally finished.

Now that I've finished this, I'm going to write another Seifer/Squall story fairly soon, and I would appreciate it if you were to read my next story as well. :) I feel very happy having finished this story and I can't wait to tackle another project.

The ending of this story might be disappointing to some and satisfying to others. For those who were hoping for a different ending.. I am sorry, but this is the way the story had to end in order to get Squall where I wanted him to be.

Thank you for staying with me until now and please consider dropping a final review after reading this Epilogue. I'd appreciate it.

_Melancholy Requiem_

_by Cosina Veloce_

_Epilogue_

The door fell shut behind Squall with a quiet click, and Squall searched for the light switch in the darkness, illuminating the neat, sterile living room. Letting his eyes trail from one object to the next inside this depressing room, Squall slowly walked into its center, sitting down on the couch carefully. Taking in the so very familiar room, Squall noticed that he saw his home with new eyes, saw his life at Balamb in a completely different light, like someone had removed the eye patches he'd been born with to show him how the real world was. Or, to show him that there was more than one world. He felt estranged amidst the room he'd been living in for eighteen long, but painfully uneventful years.

His eyes fell on a clock in a corner of the room, showing 3 o'clock in the morning. Even though Squall had taken a bullet train, the train ride had still taken 5 long hours. Hours on which he'd done nothing but stare out of the window, seeing nature change. Snow melted away until he couldn't see even a trace of it anymore, trees got higher and thinner, resembling the ones commonly found in Balamb more and more with each passing minute. He had witnessed his old life getting closer and closer, and Squall had felt his old self returning. Stoic. Cold. Emotionless.

He thought of Seifer. He thought that right about now, Seifer was probably victorious, a whole new life ahead of him. Squall was painfully tired, but wanted to read Seifer's message before he fell asleep. He hadn't read it on the train. He had figured if he read Seifer's message at home, there was at least _something_ he could look forward to. Something positive and worthwhile 'waiting' for him at home, where everything else would be as plain as it had always been. Squall sat there for a long while, the little white piece of paper clutched tightly in his fist, before he eventually unfolded it to read what Seifer had written him these 5 hours ago.

In Seifer's surprisingly neat (almost like a girl's, Squall thought), spidery handwriting were 6 lines, written in dark blue.

_Spending time with you was one of the best things that ever happened to me._

_I hope we'll see each other again._

_Somehow._

_Somewhere._

_Someday._

_- Seifer_

Squall closed his eyes, drawing shaky breaths. With a strange feeling inside his throat which felt like it intented to choke him, he clumsily stood up and walked to his bedroom, tottering and staggering like a drunk as he tried to reach the room in which he wanted to drown himself into oblivion.

Upon reaching his room and falling onto the bed, Squall fell asleep almost immediately. He didn't dream that night.

---

When Squall entered the kitchen the next morning, he was greeted by a scream that echoed sharply in his ears and was almost knocked flat on his back as his mother hugged him, yelling into his ears just how much she'd missed him. Squall made a face, but let his mother do as she pleased, sighing in relief when Raine finally let go.

"I was so worried about you, Squall," Raine looked at her son with deep, genuine feelings displayed on her pretty face. "I know I shouldn't be, you're already 18, but it's the first time you ever spent so many days alone somewhere.. I'm really glad you're back, Squall."

Squall just looked at her and nodded.

Raine still looked so very worried. "How was it..?"

He shrugged. "Fine."

His eyes left Raine and he looked over at the kitchen table where Ellone was sitting, a magazine of some sort in her hands and talking animatedly on the phone. Squall noticed that her shirt was tight and revealing, and that she repeatedly checked her manicured fingers as she laughed and giggled with, as Squall assumed, one of her girlfriends. She hadn't even noticed that her brother had come back after not having been home for three days.

Raine, who had followed Squall's eyes, noticed the situation. "Ellone!" she called, which caused Ellone to whisper something into the phone, and then look up.

"Yeah, mom?" she asked nonchalantly.

"Your brother is home."

"Oh, hi, Squall," Ellone greeted brightly. "Didn't see you there. How you been?" She devoted her attention back to the phone and turned her body away from her relatives. "So, like I was saying, he was _totally_ checking me out and..."

"Hello, Ell," Squall said quietly.

Raine turned back to her son. "So, how did you like Deling?"

"It's a great city," Squall said.

Raine raised an eyebrow. "Oh really? I'm surprised you like those Galbadians. You know how they dislike us hardworking country-folks." She laughed quietly, a hand before her mouth, and Squall just looked at her, realizing for the first time just how stupid she was. Just _how_ little she knew. Squall, who had experienced the other side of life these past days, found it difficult to relate to his mother that moment, his mother who refused to see anything beyond her town's borders. She probably thought she'd seen the world just because she used to live in Esthar more than 18 years ago, back when she divorced Laguna. For the first time, she really hit home that experience wasn't always about age.

_You could live in the same town and do the same things everyday for 20 years, and chances were you knew less about life than a person 15 years your junior who had lived life to its fullest. You're so ignorant, mother. So very ignorant._

"I already packed your school stuff for you today," Raine interrupted her son's thoughts with her annoyingly cheerful, carefree voice. "You've got a Biology test today, did you know?"

"No," Squall answered truthfully. "I'll go to the bathroom and wash myself now," he announced, but Ellone interrupted him and he turned around to her. "Look at this," Ellone said, pointing at the TV, casually putting cookies into her mouth. She had stopped talking to her girlfriend on the phone and was lounging on the kitchen chair. "The news are on."

"Anything interesting?" Raine asked.

"New gang riots in Deling City," Ellone explained. Squall stopped dead in his tracks, whirling around, almost jumping the TV as his eyes glued themselves to their TV set. Both women noticed his unusual behaviour and sent him a strange look.

"That's another reason why I was so worried," Raine started. "Deling and its gang -"

"Shut up, mother!" Squall exclaimed passionately, his eyes never leaving the TV set. A pretty woman was announcing another gang riot with a stern face, talking about two street fighting gangs who had battled each other for money. Squall's blood turned to ice.

_"During last night's gang riots in Deling City's most dangerous part, Lower Portway, several corpses of individuals involved in gang activities were discovered this morning. The gang's names are unknown. All or any clues to the whereabouts of the other gang members go to the Deling City Police Department. Valuable clues are handsomely paid. These are the victims, for help of identification:_

The face of a handsome man with dark hair and slanty eyes appeared on the screen. A sad smile was playing around his lips.

_"Bao Gomer, 26 years old, shot to death. No criminal record."_

His face disappeared, and the face of an older man with brown hair and sunken eyes took his place.

_"Zink Aers, 45 years old, stabbed to death from various mortal wounds. Ex-convict, long criminal record, including murder."_

Ellone yawned somewhere behind Squall, but he paid her no attention. His heart was thundering in his ears, soaking up every second of the TV program and when a handsome voice flashed on the TV, Squall swore his heart skipped a beat, to be enclosed by a crushing, violent hand of stone. Squall felt like he was suffocating, like the entire world was melting away around him, until there was nothing left but him and the face on the TV screen. The face he had seen during the past three days. The face that had said so many smart things. The face he had covered with kisses.

_"Seifer Almasy, 19 years young, died from a bullet through his heart. Ex-convict for murder."_

"Oh, he's so handsome," Ellone cooed.

Squall felt like vomiting, suffocating and collapsing all at once. Turning to his sister, he yelled, at the top of his lungs: "Shut up, Ellone!" The yell was so loud that Squall's lungs positively hurt, and Ellone looked as though he had slapped her.

Squall clasped his hands to his face and ran out of the door, collapsing on their front lawn, vomiting violently, his whole body shaking with the spasms. As soon as the spasms subsided, he wiped his mouth carelessly, and ran away, distantly hearing his mother's screams behind him, but she was as insignificant as a butterfly against a steel pipe.

Memories were attacking Squall's head almost violently as he ran.

_I see you as my equal, Squall._

Seifer's voice sounded hollow inside Squall's head and he shook it, not noticing any of the neighbours he passed, not noticing where he was running to and not caring.

_Rinoa and those gangs was all I really had._

_You don't have to worry about me, Squall. I'll be fine._

_Have you ever thought about killing yourself...?_

At this point, Squall let out a frustrated yell.

_I don't love you, Squall..._

Squall started to sob, gasping for air. His head was starting to spin and his stomach was revolting.

_.. but I'm on the path that leads there._

Collapsing in his run, Squall buried his face in his hands, not crying but still feeling like he was suffocating. Squall made himself as small as he could, wrapping his arms around his shaking body. The hot Balambian sun was burning down on him.

When another memory flashed through him, Squall violently, almost as if someone invisible had lifted him, jumped up, his face a mask of aggression and sudden determination. One of Seifer's sentences repeated itself over and over again in his head, like a mantra.

_Only when we put our own lives at stake is when we truly feel alive. _

_Only when we put our own lives at stake is when we truly feel alive._

_Only when we put our own lives at stake is when we -_

Breaking into a sudden sprint and not stopping once, Squall finally had a destination, a place to be. He didn't look back once, nor left or right, the entire time he was running.

--

_Meanwhile_

Dina Nibil was chewing on her pen absent-mindedly as she was processing some of the data on her computer, her thoughts travelling back and forth between work and the catastrophic date she'd had with her boyfriend last night. He had accused her of being a workaholic; laughable when she reminded herself how much _he_ liked to throw his heart into work himself. Sometimes, men were just idiots, she decided to herself, checking her watch.

"Wanna go get lunch?" Jianna, one of her co-workers from the next table asked. They were currently the only two people in the office and while they weren't exactly friends, they sometimes ate lunch together when there wasn't much of an alternative. Today, though, Dina wasn't in the mood. She wanted to stay and think how she would straighten her things with her boyfriend – or, if she even _wanted_ to.

"Nah, you go ahead," Dina said, waving her hand dismissively. "I've still got some stuff to do."

Jianna obviously didn't believe an ounce of what she was blabbering, but didn't press the issue. She just shrugged and left the office without another word, leaving Dina all alone in the Balamb Garden Acception and Administration Office. Hastily typing some more data into her computer, Dina spent a good ten minutes on work, before she yawned and stretched her arms over her head, deciding she would take a small break after all. Opening one of her drawers to eat some chocolate she had stored in there, she jerked in surprise when the door crashed open, causing her to sit up at once, gazing at shock at the boy who'd just entered.

He was panting all over, and there was an air of danger about him that caused Dina to almost visibly shrink back into her seat, trying to get some distance between her and the fuming teenager. The boy, so much raw emotions in his eyes, spotted her and bolted towards her, putting both hands on her table, his face now so close to hers that she could see that his eyes were wide and shocked, his clothes in utter disarray. He also smelled very faintly of vomit, something which caused Dina's nose to curl.

Resisting the almost physical pull to back away, she tried to collect herself, summoning the professional self that had gone into hiding somewhere inside her.

With a forced smile, she asked: "What can I help you with?"

"I want to join Garden," the boy said with so much determination in his voice that Dina did not dare say anything for a full minute. Just staring at the pretty boy – because pretty he was, despite his state – she silently contemplated her options. Suddenly, fear gripped her. She was alone in the office and she somehow wasn't so sure this boy wouldn't do anything to her if she refused him entry.

"Um, okay," Dina said, going for the safe route. "That can be arranged. How many years of combat or military training have you had...?"

The boy bit down on his lip. "None."

Dina's eyes widened. "_None?"_ She paused_. "_In this case..."

"No!" the boy interrupted her sharply and she now saw that he was shaking all over. "I'll do anything if you accept me. I'm 18 years old and I've never had any training, but I know, I just _know_.." he said passionately, "that this is what I have to do. That this is the real _me_."

Dina was so perplexed she didn't know what to say. "Um, how about you sit down and we discuss this in peace? There's a chair over there."

The woman sighed in relief as the boy's dangerous presence retrated, strolling over in sure strides to get the chair. But when he positioned the chair so he was facing Dina, the determination evident in his face had not faltered. Au contraire, it appeared to have increased.

"So.." Dina struggled for words, so very intimated by this boy. "What's your name?"

"Squall Leonhart."

The name rang a bell. "Raine's son...?"

The boy nodded and Dina frantically searched her memory to dig up everything she'd heard other people say about Raine's son before, but she could remember nothing useful. In fact, she could almost swear all the people had always been telling her that the Leonhart kid was extremely introverted and a loner and definitely not the kind of person who would barge into an office smelling of vomit and sweat and demanding the impossible. Dina frowned deeply.

"Are you attending Balamb Town High School?" she asked tentatively.

"Finishing this year," the boy said, seemingly getting impatient. "Look, let's get to the point: can I join or not? I'll do anything to get accepted. I'll train with a gunblade – or any other weapon if you so wish me to – night and day if I have to. I'll do my best to eventually catch up to the other students."

Dina licked her lips. "Mr. Leonhart, I'm afraid it's not that easy. We usually only accept applications from older teens who've had thorough training before and.."

"I don't mind being put in the same classes as the 10-year-olds at first," he interrupted her harshly. "I'm ready to make sacrifices. But I've made up my mind about it. Garden is the place I want to be."

He seemed so determined, so ready, so aggressive that Dina did not dare to reply for a while. When she finally did, it was with caution: "Let me talk this over with the headmaster" She reached for the phone, but again, Squall spoke up.

"Can't I talk to the headmaster myself?"

Dina looked at his misplaced clothes, at his messy hair and his wild face. "I think not."

Squall looked at her. "Please?" It sounded more like a threat than a plea.

"I'll.. talk to him." Dina swallowed and dialled the number. After three beeps, Headmaster Cid picked up the phone.

"Headmaster Cid speaking."

"Hello, Headmaster. Dina Nibil from Acception and Administration Office speaking" Her eyes darted over to the young man, who was staring at her intently. "I have a.. situation."

"What is it, Miss Nibil?" Cid asked pleasantly.

"I have a young boy here who wishes to enter Garden, but he is 18 years old and has not had any military training whatsoever. Am I to accept his admission or not?"

There was a pause on the other end of the line. "Send him to me," Cid said.

"But, sir," Dina said, looking at Squall as she lowered her voice, "he's not in a very presentable state at the moment."

The Headmaster laughed good-naturedly. "Let me be the judge of that. Send him to my office in half an hour."

"All right," Dina answered, shifting uncomfortably in her seat. "Have a nice day, Headmaster."

"Goodbye, Miss Nibil," Cid said and hung up.

"So?" Squall asked, almost jumping in her face. "What did he say?" He looked just about ready to kill to get this information.

"He'll see you," Dina said coolly, trying not to show her fear. "Go to his office in half an hour."

A look of intense relief washed over Squall's face, an emotion that softened his features, showing for the first time how handsome he _really_ was. He had deep, grey eyes and full, pouty lips, and Dina caught herself staring at the boy. "You may go," she said dismissively, shaking her head at herself.

The boy complied and left the room without another world, leaving Dina behind. She felt a tremor go through her body as she remembered the naked pain she'd seen in the youth's face.

---

"Come in," a voice from within exclaimed as Squall gently, but full of fear knocked at the door of the Headmaster's office half an hour later. Collecting himself for a second, he slowly entered the door, careful not to look to aggressive or overbearing as he bowed slightly to the man sitting on his desk, who was regarding him out of small, blue, patient eyes.

"Squall Leonhart, at your service," Squall said, without really knowing what he was saying. Perhaps it had come out as slightly ridiculous, but Squall hadn't been able to think of anything else. When he lifted his head to look at the Headmaster, Cid was still looking at him out of those unnervingly calm, yet friendly eyes.

"You may sit down," Cid said, gesturing to a seat. "Would you like a glass of water or some coffee..?"

"No, thank you," Squall answered as he sat down on the seat, looking at Cid, studying his face. Squall had been able to calm down these past thirty minutes and he was no resembling an axe-murderer on loose. His determination, however, had not wavered one bit. He had made up his mind, and no matter what he would have to take, he would get what he wanted. For the first time in his life, Squall knew what he had to do.

"I hear you have shown interest in joining our Garden," Cid started, looking at Squall the way a psychiatrist would. "Most unusual for an 18-year-old without any combat training, if you don't mind me saying so."

"Not at all," Squall said. "It took me a lot longer to realize what I really wanted than most kids."

Cid's intense gaze started to make Squall uneasy. "And you are sure joining Garden is what you want, Mr. Leonhart?"

"Absolutely," Squall answered in a heartbeat, licking his lips nervously as something in Cid's pleasant, but authoriative facial expression changed, something that Squall, having no real experience with social situations, had no way of knowing how to place.

Cid finally stopped looking at Squall and instead started to shuffle through documents. "I see." Squall didn't dare say a word as he watched Cid read through his documents, not wanting to interrupt the Headmaster, anything but anger him, anything but displease him. Anything but cause him to turn him down.

"I see a lot of determination in you," Cid said calmly. "Truly extraordinary. I wish more of my employees showed as much passion for Garden as you do." He smiled at that, but quickly became serious again. "However, it is not that easy. You might never catch up to other people your age and this is something you have to understand. You might end up sparring with people five or more years younger than you for a very, _very_ long time. Life at Garden is not easy. It does happen that our cadets die during missions or even, even though we do our mightiest do prevent it, during sparring." He looked at Squall intently. "Are you ready to face all that?"

"No doubt," Squall answered immediately. "This is exactly what I want. I'm sure of it. No matter what it takes."

Cid nodded. "In this case, you shall be accepted."

Joy shot through his body, sweet, delicious joy. It was like a weight had been lifted from his shoulders, like a feather had started to massage his strained nerves, like with one simple sentence, his life suddenly didn't look so bad anymore. The joy, however, quickly seeped out of him. The wounds were so raw, the pain so intense, but the prospect of being able to join Garden suffocated the cries of his raw wounds enough for him to enjoy feeble moments of perfect harmony.

"I can't thank you enough," Squall said earnestly. "Seriously. This means a lot to me."

"I can tell," Cid said softly, then smiled. "So, what weapon would you like to pick?"

"A gunblade," Squall answered, without having to think about it. Remembering how elegant, how powerful it had been in Seifer's hands, how deadly and vicious, he knew it was the right weapon for him.

"Well, I guess there's no sense in arguing with you," Cid said. "I'm looking forward to see you handle the gunblade. Nobody has ever really mastered it."

"Nobody?" Squall blurted out. "That's not true."

Cid watched him carefully. "There was a boy at Galbadia Garden who came pretty close.." he trailed off. "Well, if you fill out this application, you can start school tomorrow, if you like." He handed Squall a bunch of papers along with a pen.

Squall could taste his heart at the back of his throat as he filled out the forms, his hand shaking in anticipation as he wrote.

When he had finished, he gave the papers back to Cid, watching him intently as he accepted the papers with a faint smile on his face. "Am I really accepted?" Squall blurted out. Suddenly, for one heart-wrenching moment fearing that Cid had only been kidding, that Cid had only wanted to pull his leg, that there no way they would accept a teenage boy without combat training. For one moment, he saw the life he thought he'd escaped approaching him with swift steps, trying to reach him with long, ghostly hands.

"Yes, I said so, didn't I?" Cid answered and Squall's vision ended at once, leaving a boy behind who didn't know what to feel, who was so utterly confused his head started to spin again. He had achieved what he had come to do and he suddenly, very abruptly, was afraid of what would follow.

"You may go," Cid said dismissely, starting to type some of the information Squall had written on the papers into his computer.

Squall stood up and just as he was about to leave the room, Cid spoke up again in a very warm, friendly tone: "See you tomorrow at 8 o'clock, Squall. Don't think that we'll go easy on you just because it's your first day."

Squall whirled around abruptly, causing Cid to look up from his work, Squall's troubled grey eyes meeting Cid's calm ones and a brief moment passed between the two men. "Thank you," Squall said quietly. "Thank you very much, Headmaster."

Cid smiled and just waved his hand dismissively.

Squall bowed and left the room, closing the door very quietly behind him.

--

When Squall stepped into the hot Balamb sun that afternoon, he instinctively had to shield his eyes from the impending light. Sweat started to break out on his skin at the strange, new heat and he took off his black jacket, wrapping it around his lean waist. Looking back up at the sky, he saw numerous small clouds passing by, each in curious, unique shapes, each giving off the peaceful feeling only nature could. The sky was very blue that day. Much bluer than the sky in Deling City had been.

Squall dropped the hand he had used to shield his sensitive eyes with, his hand wandering into his jeans pocket. Slowly, as if scared to damage the simple, wrinkled peace of paper, he extracted the note Seifer had given him, very likely the last thing he'd written in his much too short life. Possibly one of the last things Seifer had ever touched and had given it to him, Squall, the last person he likely had ever kissed, had ever had sex with. Squall groaned quietly as he saw Seifer's face, as detailed as though he was standing right before him, as though he only had to reach out to touch the blonde's body. He remembered Seifer's most extraordinary feature – his brilliant eyes, eyes that were able to see the world as it was, hiding sparkling intelligence in them.

Squall experienced the curious feeling of being torn apart from the inside and Squall, for the first time in his young life, came in personal contact with raw emotional _pain, _pain so deep and pure that only three days ago, Squall would never have thought possible of feeling. The brunette, at last, knew what it felt like, the emotion least liked of all of them, yet so basic and strong most children experienced it at a very young age, an emotion most people were as familiar with as they were with love, compassion or faith.

Squall closed his eyes, willing his body to stop shivering, his heart to stop beating too fast, his breathing to steady. The brunette felt the warm rays of the sun dancing on his bare arms. He heard birds singing distantly. He smelled the scent of grass and sun.

_A day of advenutre is worth a thousand of comfort and boredom_, Seifer whispered into his ear, as intimately as the lover he had been to him. Something warm covered the raw pain, trying to soothe it, but not quite succeeding.

Opening his clear, grey eyes, Squall looked into the sky once more, letting the simple beauty of a day lik any other soothe his strained nerves, letting it try to mute the stinging agony inside him. Somehow, words found its way out of Squall's mouth and they spilled out before Squall could stop them, words that Squall had tried to suppress because they were words that weren't meant to be heard by anyone other than Seifer. They sounded ridiculous even to him, but yet they were the last words he had really wanted to say to Seifer.

"Thank you for teaching me about everything.. about life... feelings.. and love. I would've liked to see you again.. somewhere...somehow..."

He clenched his fists until his nails digging into his palms were drawing blood. "Someday."

With that, he tore Seifer's message into tiny little pieces, covering them with the blood of his palms as he did so, a sudden drop of water falling down on them. Irritated, Squall looked up at the sky, looking for rain clouds, but didn't see any. Squall didn't know where the sudden drop had come from, something that left him with a deeply unsettling feeling.

But he returned to the pieces, and, when they were finally small enough, scattered them in the wind. Why he did so, he did not know. When the pieces were no longer visible, Squall drew a long breath, filling his lungs until they hurt.

Squall Leonhart, on this sunny day in Balamb during his 18th year of life, was eager to finally start living.

**The End.**


End file.
